Very cool Social tool for Women in Businesses - the Women's ToolBox !
I have been fortunate to meet an incredible group of women through my professional and organizational roles, and one person who shares my passion for expanding opportunities would like to encourage more women to connect with each other and access great resources through her organization, The Women's Toolbox. Janet Powers, the Chief Executive Connector, will -- in her own words -- help you FIND Your Voice, SHARPEN Your Skills, SHARE Your Expertise and EXPAND Your Network. Its tagline (“Practical Advice for Busy Business Women”) illustrates its mission is to empower, educate, and entertain women.
I had the opportunity to talk with Janet at a lunch I hosted for female executives during our recent global customer event IBM Connect, and she suggested we work together in our support of women's empowerment. As part of her commitment, I am excited to share that if you become a new member of The Women's Toolbox, for a limited time you will receive a copy of my book, Get Bold: Using Social Media to Create a New Type of Social Business. I hope you will learn more about the resources available from Janet's organization, and that you will share the opportunity to participate with the women in your networks as well.
Join online at
http://womenstoolbox.com/join-today/.
Does Social Require you lose control (of your brand?!)
Is losing control of your brand a good thing or a bad thing?
We are used to operating with the idea that we have to protect the brand. How do we lose control of our brand so that our customers have a role in shaping our brand as much as we do?
Well, we know that your brand is not what you say it is, but what everyone else decides. Social enables you to influence your brand and engage where and how others want to talk. You can identify and engage influencers and unleash your employees as a “digital army” by building with customers and convert them to brand ambassadors
If you use Social Analytics to identify needs in the marketplace for specific products, features, or process enhancements by listening and this could allow you to tweak your brand value prop. Leveraging crowdsourcing to engage employees, partners, and even customers in innovation discussions increases the number and sources of new ideas; but also enables the best ideas to become more visible and mature through collaboration.
I LOVE having brands be leveraged by clients is great -- and I don't think that it is anything new. Companies now orchestrate and can shape the brand not based on what we are selling but on their character, their interactions, their experiences.
Check out our IBM CMO Jon Iwata!
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/62205426]
Social in Insurance -- Overhyped or unused?
With over 66% of top financially performing companies leverage social in their processes and over 80% positive impact on trust for CEOs who openly communicate on social, social can mean power to some and hype to others.
In the next 3-5 years the use of social media by Insurers will increase from 4% to 51% as one of the most important mechanisms to engage customers according to IBM CEO study.
Is this because of hype? I don't think so. Financial Services has always been a “social” industry – we are now just shifting from F2F and phone to more online interaction; mirroring the shift of our customers and employees. The leading FSS companies are using social to explain changes to the financial environment and to provide increased clarity around specific products – partially due to changing regulatory requirements, but also to build trust.
Financial Services as a sector suffers from a major trust gap – social is a powerful capability for building trust
Financial Advisors are using social to engage clients and prospects – using social compliance capabilities to provide support for suitability and records retention. Many financial companies have embraced external social media for brand promotion, engagement, and marketing. Leading financial companies have also brought social capabilities inside the firewall. Regulatory requirements necessitate active social compliance monitoring and reporting
Complex, expert-oriented activities (e.g. commercial or specialty underwriting) can be faster (social collaboration) and more accurate (engaging the right people). Networking social capabilities into traditional core insurance and financial services business processes and legacy systems can create dramatic value while leveraging investments you have already made.
Today I am at Prudential for their Technology Leadership Conference and we will discuss these topics and more! I'd love your thoughts - especially if you are in the industry!
Find the Easter Eggs! Social Business Coffee Break - A Vblog on METRICS!
Happy Monday!
Our final Adoption Best Practice today! This one is all about Metrics! Metrics for me are like finding Easter Eggs -- you get the goodies and the score for the day!
Tell me how you are measuring YOUR success!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0m5EFFu6k4&feature=youtu.be]
Clash of Civilizations - email in a Social World!
Global E-mail Patterns Reveal “Clash of Civilizations”
The global pattern of e-mail communication reflects the cultural fault lines of thought to determine future conflict, say computational social scientists.
Researchers analyzed a global database of e-mail messages, and their locations, sent by more than 10 million people over the space of a year. The results suggest that the pattern of connections between these people, clearly reflects the host civilizations. In other words, the way we send e-mails is a reflection of the mesh of civilizations that is an important driver of future conflict.
Social Business Governance: Relationship over Rules
Being inclusive means engaging stakeholders early and broadly to build shared understandings and expectations. Responsiveness provides for clear accountability and speed in decision making. The challenge is to build governance structures and processes that accomplish both.
Having a relationship with your employees not just rules makes a huge difference in how successful you are!
Achieving the transformative value of becoming a Social Business involves connecting all parts of the organization (including channels, partners and customers) in new ways. It often requires quite new ways of managing people, flatter organizations, and significant cultural change. While becoming social provides individual flexibility, it’s important that the change achieves the unifying value for the company of the new goals and culture.
A strong governance program facilitates coordinated change. The governance is led by two complementary leadership groups who’s members include the major “organizational structures” (e.g., LOBs, Finance, Supply Chain, HR, Channel Management, …).
The first, the Executive Sponsor Group, defines the strategic linkage and goals of becoming a social business. Members are leaders across the organization. The second is a Digital Council. These are executives who are responsible for the organization-wide, execution creation of the Social Business plan. The representatives are often the social business leaders in their respective LOBs and functional areas, which ensures focus on the vertical and horizontal needs.
The Digital Council focuses on the key areas of a social program:
- Community Management – Provides a common approach to drive change and adoption at and across the LOB and functional level. It includes actions like community management, Content Management, community analytics, and best practices. While the focus is value at the LOB / functional level, the governance processes has a Center of Excellent that shares best practices to create a common social voice and approach across and outside the organization.
- Metrics and Measurement - Covers all elements of data and measurement. Starts with analytics / listening to guide the where and how to engage socially. This includes internal analytics of social networks, expertise, and projects, as well as the external listening and analytics. This group also is responsible for creating and automating the overall program measurements to track success, progress on the plan, and social return.
- Reputation and Risk Management – Focuses on 3 main areas: 1. regulatory risk and compliance(if relevant), social record retention for general discovery, and other legal and financial risks; 2. policies, guidelines and processes for the organization and associates to participate in social media (for example, IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines); and 3. proactively managing the organization’s reputation and having a defined plan to respond to various levels of negative media or emergencies.
- Standards – This group focuses on process and technical standards for a social business. While LOBs, major business functions, etc. require the freedom to build their social programs tailored to their needs, the Standards group ensures that the overall company can be nimble in connecting across boundaries in ways not always anticipated. Standards for brand and ways of connecting with partners, channels, clients, etc. ensure that the company is viewed as coordinated and focused on needs vs. a “collection of parts.” On the technical side, a common social business framework enables the new ways of working.
Social Overload?! Can you handle the pressure?!
Every brand wants you to join their community. Overload, too many social channels – internal networks, external networks, personal networks, a new social media tool launched once every 24 hours. Everyone wants to collaborate, work with each other. Can we handle all the pressure?
- 76% of brand conversations happen offline
- 14% of brand conversations happen by phone
- 8% of brand conversations happen online
Have we hit a social media plateau?
In recent client conversations on usage of social media, the trendsetters appear to be “socialed out”. Most early adopters seem to be overwhelmed with their personal, corporate, and professional social networks. In fact, respondents feel that adding any additional network for anything social is quite overwhelming.
Recent early adopter surveys identify five key phases of social media adoption. Per Ray Wang, they are:
Phase 1: Eager early adopters. Users eagerly experimented in the newness of the medium. Early adopters attempt to apply the medium to everything.
Phase 2: Ubiquitous usage. Rapid adoption put the medium in the hands of the masses.
Phase 3: Relevant ratonalization. Brands and enterprises apply the medium to the right business use cases and processes.
Phase 4: Desensitization and fatal fatigue. Inundated with marketing, bombarded with irrelevant content, and tired of the newness of the medium, customers begin tuning out.
Phase 5: Rejuvenation. Maturation of the medium ushers an improved era of engagement.
What do you think ?
Social Business Adoption Best Practice #9: Brand Army!
Happy Monday and grab that coffee!!!
Today's Social Business Coffee Break is about forming that important Brand Army!
Let me know your thoughts!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vN8JO6lmvg&feature=youtu.be]
Social Business Coffee Break! Adoption Best Practice: Reverse Mentoring
Happy Monday! This is our 8th Best Practice for Social Business Adoption.
It is all about Reverse Mentoring -- a great best practice!
Tell me what you think!
Happy Friday! What is a Social Business Anyway?
Please forgive me if you know this but I have had so many questions at SXSW on "What is a Social Business" that I jotted down my thoughts to share!!!
If you are 201, please skip but I am hoping this is helpful to a lot of you!!
1. What is social business?
A major change is taking place in social media these days: leading-edge companies are moving from "liking" to leading.
Social media has become an extension of traditional paid media with many companies broadcasting messages, from traditional to innovative. The next step will be much deeper as the leaders recognize that social engagement is an opportunity to redefine the client service experience, be proactive in delivering customer care and differentiate in new ways.
We call this social business. And just as social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest changed the flow of information by helping people share insights, opinions, and news with anyone anywhere, social business is changing the way people connect with companies and inside of them and how organizations succeed.
What is a social business? It's an organization that integrates social technologies with critical business processes to improve the productivity of its workforce and create exceptional customer service.
Forrester Research estimates the market opportunity for social software is expected to rise 60% annually from 2010.
2. How is social business different from social media?
Organizations have quickly learned that a Social Business isn't a company that just has a Facebook page and a Twitter account. A Social Business means that every department in the organization has embedded social capabilities into their traditional business processes to fundamentally impact how work gets done to create business value. A Social Business utilizes social software technology to communicate with its rich ecosystem of clients, business partners and employees.
Three shifts are creating an opportunity for social technology to create real business value
- Pressure to build and share expertise for competitive advantage
- Increasingly influential and vocal customers
- Growing demand for 24/7 and mobile connectedness
Leaders in every industry are leveraging Social Business technology to disrupt their industries and create competitive advantage. They are improving productivity and unleashing innovation by tapping into the collective intelligence inside and outside their organizations. With social, they're creating a smarter workforce.
3. What are the benefits of becoming a social business?
In a social business, employees are smarter, more loyal, and engaged because their organization uses social networks, collaboration systems and shared messaging services.
A "social" approach enables employees around the world to tap into each other’s expertise and connections. Companies can attract top talent and give employees the social tools they need to work together. Executives can layer analytics on top of social technologies to make sure their companies have the right skills and expertise to meet market demands.
A social business is also one where customer service is exceptional because the company reaches out to customers through social networks, Twitter and blogs in innovative ways and acts on the insights it pulls together about consumers. That way, customer service teams have the insights and the analytics they need to predict and resolve problems before they happen. Companies can dish up more targeted offers to customers and respond more quickly to their problems. R&D can gain new sources of inspirations and insight from customers and employees so that the products customers want are the ones that get to market.
4. Example of social business transformations.
Teach for America: Teach For America, a nonprofit organization that works in partnership with communities to expand educational opportunity for children facing the challenges of poverty, is using IBM's social business platform to help bridge the gap in educational inequality for 600,000 students nationwide. Teach For America's 40,000 teachers, alumni and employees are accessing a digital network built on IBM's industry leading social
networking platform to share best practices and innovative teaching techniques in the classroom, across school districts, and state borders. Teach For America's digital portal, TFANet, allows incoming and current teachers, alumni and staff to connect and share knowledge, resources and guidance to help deepen their impact as educational leaders. All 40,000 corps members, alumni and staff have access to discussion forums, blogs, wikis, videos, and user profiles to exchange information and insight across the organization's 46 regions. IBM social networking technology has allowed Teach For America to build a network and digital experience for its teachers and alumni that includes a resource exchange with over 30,000 user-generated classroom materials focused on classroom management plans and worksheets, lesson plans, and new teaching techniques to help increase efficiency and learning in classrooms across the country. Members can access more than 600 content-specific communities, nearly 20 blogs, and 500 video clips and virtual classroom visits, providing Teach For America members with vital advice and insight from their colleagues to help advance their performance in the classroom.
LeasePlan: LeasePlan, one of the leading vehicle leasing and fleet management companies in the world, is using IBM Connections across the multi-national company of over 40 subsidiaries, in 30 countries and over 6,000 employees. LeasePlan is using IBM Connections for knowledge retention, optimizing workflow, increasing innovation, and transforming business processes. Nearly 800 communities have been formed, 400 blogs, and over 800 forums are all helping the organization decrease the amount of emails sent and received, helping the workforce easily find expertise and saving employees valuable time. Wim de Gier, LeasePlan’s Senior Global Project Manager Corporate Strategy & Development says, “LinkedPeople makes it easy to find people with specific expertise. Employees create personal profiles that include information such as their background, expertise, and links to articles or papers they have written. By searching tags, users can locate specific information and find colleagues suited to answer particular questions. Users can also find questions relating to their expertise that they can answer.”
Electrolux: Electrolux is powered through the innovations of its employees to create products that consumers need. Because of this, the ability for employees to access content and collaborate on the fly is crucial. Using IBM enterprise social networking software, Electrolux employees can now easily find experts and gain valuable insight from information and data. They are engaging in over 1,000 collaboration spaces, including 100 information portals managed by more than 450 editors and visited by employees 15,000 times a month and 9,000 times a day.
CEMEX: Speeding innovation and time to market
CEMEX is the third largest building materials company in the world, with employees in 50 countries. To meet business challenges, it had to bring its global community closer together, so it created a social network initiative, called Shift, for open collaboration across its entire workforce. Within a year, over 20,000 employees were engaged, over 500 communities had formed, nine global innovation initiatives were underway -- and ideas started flowing around the world among specialists in all areas and levels of the company. Wikis, blogs and communities became links between operating units around the world, and the collaboration among employees led to impressive results -- for instance, the launch in under four months of the first global brand of CEMEX's Ready Mix special product. If the same level of collaboration now enabled by Shift were conducted today through traditional meetings by phone and travel, CEMEX would be spending an additional US$0.5 to US$1 million per year.