Transcript Secrets of SharePoint Social Computing Success

SUSAN HANLEY LLC
Let’s Get Social:
Best Practices for Leveraging the Social Computing
Features of SharePoint 2010
July 12, 2011
©2011
SUSAN HANLEY LLC
Agenda
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Should you care about Social Computing?
How does SharePoint do social?
How can you get prepared? – Key Steps
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Clearly Identify the Business Problem
Decide Which Features Make Sense for Your Organization
Be Prepared to Respond to Barriers
Define Your Governance Plan
Define a “Do-able” Pilot Project
Provide Best Practices and Examples
Prepare a Launch and Communications Plan
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About Me
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Expertise: knowledge management, information
architecture, portals and collaboration solutions with
a focus on governance, user adoption, and metrics
President, Susan Hanley LLC. Co-Author: Essential
SharePoint 2010 and Essential SharePoint 2007
Led national Portals, Collaboration, and Content
Management practice for Dell
Director of Knowledge Management at American
Management Systems
http://www.susanhanley.com
Mother of three “millennials”
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Getting Social with SharePoint 2010
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Blogs
Wikis
Profile
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Personal Portal (MySite)
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Interests, Expertise, Education – About Me
My stuff
Status Updates
Social Metadata: tags, notes, comments, ratings
Community Sites
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Should I care?
which are
why we care
about
Social
Computing
means
User
Generated
Content
Business
Results!
results
in
drives
Better
Content
Engaged
Users
results
in
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It’s not just about engaging …
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Gartner predicts that you won’t have a choice
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By 2014, Gartner predicts that social
networking services will replace e-mail as
the primary vehicle for interpersonal
communication by as many as 20% of
business users.
Source: “Tapping the positive from social networks for collaboration,” eWeek,
November 15, 2020
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And, it’s not just the millennials …
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Social networking among
internet users 50 and older
nearly doubled to 47% from
25% between April 2009 and
May 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703559504575630404070140386.html?KEYWORDS=older+adults+and+social+media
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Older-Adults-and-Social-Media/Report.aspx
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… and there are opportunities for measurable results …
Results of internal micro-blogging from Deloitte
Australia:
 Frequent users 8-10x more likely to stay with
the firm
 Posting a question to the community saves an
estimated 1 hour spent searching
Source: Tim Walters, Forrester, Seize the Business Value of the Social Intranet, January 26, 2011
SlideShare: Making Your Intranet Social
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… that directly tie to key operational performance
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From Deloitte’s research report: Social software for business performance
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You won’t be alone …
A recent survey of more than 525 companies indicated that:
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53% have intranet blogs
52% have intranet discussion forums
51% have intranet instant messaging
49% have intranet wikis
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Social computing is everywhere …
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7,680,000 Google Hits
You can get a degree in
Social Computing at the
University of Michigan
(School of Information)
It’s in every product
description
Social: it’s the new black
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But, …
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There is only valid reason for implementing the social
computing features of SharePoint:
You have a business
problem to solve!
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So, what are the secrets?
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Clearly Identify the Business Problem
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Decide Which Features Make Sense for Your Organization
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Start small and build and expand
Have a cross-functional team
Provide Best Practices and Examples
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Mange content, plan oversight, define policies and procedures
Define a “Do-able” Pilot Project
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Understand concerns, identify champions
Identify value proposition
Define Your Governance Plan
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It doesn’t have to be ALL (or none)
Be Prepared to Respond to Barriers
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Which existing business processes would benefit from social capabilities?
Define how you will measure success
Make sure people know what is expected
Prepare a Launch and Communications Plan
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How can we ensure both adoption and participation?
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1. Clearly identify the business problem
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Increasing the speed of access to internal experts
Building relationship capital
Improving the connection between people and the content and
processes they need to get their jobs done – even when the
connection crosses traditional organizational boundaries
Increasing employee engagement
Identifying new opportunities for mentorship and knowledge
sharing
Allowing users to contribute content to information repositories
Moving conversations out of the limited range of e-mail and
hallways and in to online spaces where more people can benefit
Discover emerging opportunities and identify opportunities
for innovation
Making it easier to recruit and retain new, Internet-savvy
employees
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Geoffrey Moore predicts major investments in “social”
technologies
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According to Moore, “Systems of Engagement” haven’t yet
“crossed the chasm”
Individual companies are doing initiatives but everyone is
talking about it
You’re not
doing this
yet, either?
No.
Good,
neither are
we.
CIO Conversations about Social Computing
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Think about identifying the business problem for your
organization this way …
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Focus on the critical moments of engagement and
work backwards
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Services:
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Product Development:
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Sales process engaging with a new client
Analyst creating a deliverable
Engineer struggling with a problem
Resource Planning:
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Project Manager looking for the most qualified resources for a project
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Back to those millennials and “I’d better do it for them”
thinking …
You won’t do it well
 You won’t be focused
 It won’t make it easier for people to do their
jobs
 It will be a waste of money
 Since you do it badly, the millennials are going
to laugh at you behind your back
 on Facebook
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How do you spell success? Focus on tangible metrics – not
adoption
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User adoption should not be used a proxy for success.
Operating metrics are near term measures of organizational
performance and measure the success of key business processes.
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Reduce superfluous emails and meetings by 25%
Cut help desk calls by 50%
Focusing on operational metrics can prompt managers to use social
software and encourage their employees to do so as well.
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“I decided to use it because it helps me do my job – not because someone
told me to use it.”
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Your homework: Read the Deloitte research white paper called
“Social software for business performance - The missing
link in social software: Measureable business performance
improvements.”
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http://www.deloitte.com/assets/DcomUnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/TMT_us_tmt/us_tmt_ce_socialsoftware_fullreport_0209111.pdf
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2. Decide what makes sense – for your organization
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You don’t have to have it all ... or do it all – at
least not all at once.
Consider promoting different features at
different times – even if they are all available.
Tie what you choose to do with your
organizational goals. If you don’t, don’t expect
participation.
Figure out who should play.
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Social computing initiatives driven by one department
alone are more likely to fail than those led by a team with
people from multiple departments.
Decide whether SharePoint alone is enough.
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You may decide that you need a third party tool.
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3. Be prepared to respond to barriers - the hall of blame
U.S. monthly time on the internet in millions of hours (Nielsen)
Social Networks/Blogs
906
407
Games
329
E-mail
Portals
176
IM
160
Videos/Movies
156
Search
138
Software Information
131
Multi-category Entertainment
111
Classifieds/Auctions
107
0
200
400
600
800
1000
Millions of Hours
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Barriers you may hear – because I have!
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“If we allow any user to contribute content
(to a discussion board or a wiki or a blog),
we risk exposing inaccurate
information.”
“If we allow people to post anything they
want in their profiles or on their blogs, they
may talk about inappropriate topics or
about other people or about information
that can’t or shouldn’t be universally
shared.”
“I don’t want to share what I know in a blog
because then someone might take my idea
and use it without giving me any
credit.”
“Status updates and notes will be used for
trivial purposes and provide a distraction
from the main event: work.”
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The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions | It’s real …
SCENARIO 1
 If Landline rings when your
reading Facebook, Landline wins
your attention …
 … at least until a text
message arrives.
SCENARIO 2
 E-mail linking to video of
kittens frolicking trumps
 Work e-mail until
 E-mail
announcing mass
layoffs arrives
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/th
e-hierarchy-of-digital-distractions/
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… and given some recent events, there may be some
reason to worry about inappropriate content
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“Don’t Be a Weiner (or a Loser): Think Before You Post”
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http://www.retrevo.com/content/blog/2011/06/posting-remorse
Have you ever posted anything online about
yourself that you regretted?
• 35% of everyone surveyed said yes
• 54% of respondents under 25 years old said
yes
• 32% of respondents over age 25 said yes
Of people who posted something online that
they regretted:
• 11% said it didn't cause any other problems
• 3% said it ruined their marriage or
relationship
• 6% said it caused problems at work or
home
• 15% said it caused problems, but they were
able to remove it.
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But there could also be some very real show stoppers
 Lack
of a business case
 Lack of executive support
 Lack of IT support
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-20/enterprise-social-media-becomes-a-necessity008772.php?utm_source=MainRSSFeed&utm_medium=Web&utm_campaign=RSS-News
4. Define your governance plan
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Number one rule inside the enterprise:
no anonymous content
Explain what you mean
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Ratings? What are you rating?
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What do you think is the average grade for
things reviewed online?
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Status? What do you care about?
Profile? What should you include?
Blogs? What should you talk about?
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5. Define a “do-able” pilot
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Employee engagement is a key success
factor
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Start with a small proof-of-concept focused
on a specific business problem
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You could start with something as simple as a
Note Board web part associated with your
Announcements to allow people to comment
about internal news.
Don’t “over-plan”
Focus on usability, look and feel, and
information architecture
Engage the “seasoned veterans” and key
influencers (energetic champions)
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6. Provide Best Practices and Examples
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Tips to get started – general
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Ask questions
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Share great content
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Answer questions
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Acknowledge contributions by others
Status updates
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“Narrate your work”
Discussion Boards
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Have a moderator
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Be sure questions get answered
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“Prune”
Profiles
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People need people
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But check with Legal and HR
Metadata
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Create some to start with!
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Monitor – it’s got to be someone’s job!!!
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Best Practice Blogs
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If your organization is nervous about blogs, consider limiting who can have them
– at least in the beginning.
Include internal blogging as part of your social media policy (have fun, be smart)
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Create specific policies for bloggers
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Looking for a way to get started: check out Coca Cola’s
http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/socialmedia/
Have a list of policies regarding blogging to ensure that trade secrets are kept secret and
personal lives do not become public.
Policies may include keeping financial information from being posted, as well as severe
consequences for anyone using the blog for negative publicity, even if the audience is only
internal.
Executive blogs should be authentic.
Allow associates to comment on blogs – if you don’t, it’s not a blog – it’s just a
glorified newsletter.
Don’t allow anonymous comments on blogs – own it!
Keep content current – at least weekly if possible.
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Executive blogs need to be authentic …
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… and all blogs need to be accessible (or even promoted)
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… and you need to have an actionable social media
policy
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Best Practice Activity Updates
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Share exciting news like customer wins or client quotes
Post interesting and useful material you’ve found (links to
articles)
Ask a question
Answer a question
Post project milestones
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7. Prepare and launch a communications plan
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Use the feedback from your pilot to help
plan an organization-wide launch plan.
Be sure to capture user stories focused on
how the community features helped them do
their jobs more effectively.
Use these stories in your communications
activities to help spread the value proposition
across the enterprise.
Consider how you might want to use
incentives to drive initial participation.
Promote different features at different times.
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Contact Information
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Susan Hanley
President, Susan Hanley LLC
www.susanhanley.com
[email protected]
301-469-0770 (o)
301-442-0127 (m)
Blog:
http://www.networkworld.com/community/sharepoint
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Twitter: @susanhanley
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