The Scottish Qualifications Authority goes Social! #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz #ibmconnect
The Scottish Qualifications Authority- the body which creates and manages exams for Scotland's schools and further afield - have become a social business with the rollout of the first part of their Staff Social Portal - IBM Connections. Using Connections they are better able to communicate, collaborate and share information across their 800-strong workforce. Even before going live there were nearly 400 initial users, and 138 communities set up, dealing with work and socially-focused activities (like their ever-popular jogging club).
As I discussed with Rob Gibson, he commented " This has been a thoroughly enjoyable project from start to finish. We spent a lot of time researching how to best sell this type of solution to the organisation and then setting up an "Early Adopters" community to test the set up and iron out any issues before we opened up to everyone else.
The other main task for the Early Adopters was to populate the system and get the conversation going ahead of general opening. This created a substantial amount of momentum which we have carried on past the launch day. We started with around 15 Early Adopters and grew to nearly 400 in around three months (approximately half of the organisation).
The system is in full swing with all manner of conversations and networks being built. I am delighted with the overall response so far but we have some ideas about how we can reinvigorate the system should it require a helping hand in a few months time. We also have a planned upgrade to a future version of Connections later in the year. This will give users a great uplift and help to keep the interest levels high."
Social and BIG Data! #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz #bigdata #socialbusiness
I love the concept of systems of engagement and systems of record. These systems of engagement have a need for a diverse range of information from traditional systems of record to new sources such as social media, machine data and enterprise content.
How does Big Data enable this shift?
The new era of computing is built on a foundation of big data, where:
- All data is harnessed for its full potential to power new insights, policies and actions across the organization – both internally and externally.
Analytics helps you understand and anticipate, giving you the conviction to act
- Descriptive data describes ‘who” the customer is and typically refers to information such as age, billing address, preferred contact method etc, and often use geo-demographic information as well
- Behavioral data describes what a customer has acquired and refers to the raw transactions that the customer executes including orders, payments, usage etc, and how they use products and services. This also includes Sensor data from instrumented devices and systems, for example, your cellphone.
- Interaction data describes “how” the customer interacts through all the touch points including email, chat and the notes from contact centers – this typically includes a high proportion of unstructured data (enterprise content)
- Attitudinal data describes how customers think and feel - gives insight into the “Why” (i.e. motivation) – social media is a rich source of attitudinal data along with other sources such as surveys
To turn the mass of global conversations in social media into Useable Insights can improve results in marketing, sales, customer care, product development, and more
What is a Smart Workforce? Social is the difference. #ibmsocialbiz #kenexa #socbiz
One of the emerging trends my clients are telling me about -- as they adopt social business and really embed social in their business processes -- is the idea of a "Smarter Workforce."
One attribute of an organization with a Smarter Workforce is the way they build their teams.
The way we recruit people has certainly changed. It wasn't that long ago that the Sunday newspaper came thick with job want ads, since recruiting in those days meant lots of expensive advertising and endless rounds of interviews. The advent of online job postings streamlined that process for sure, and saved a lot of trees, but there's an even newer trend we're seeing, as social business works its way into the business processes of leading organizations.
Especially at one end of the job market -- when you're after recent graduates and people in the earlier stages of their careers -- newspaper ads won't reach them, and even online job postings are just "meh."
My most successful customers tell us they need to attract talent, not recruit it, and there's a big difference. I think social is that difference. Do you agree?
Attracting top candidates is more than just awareness -- sure they know you're hiring, but now what?
The trick is to attract the right candidates, who have the strengths, career aspirations and personalities your org needs to succeed -- and them match them with the right roles, the right parts of your org, and the right place in your organization's culture.
What do you do at your company? How do you find the right candidates? How do you use social to match the people you attract with jobs you and they want?
The Marble Effect! Build an Intentional Social Business Ecosystem! #ibmsocialbiz #socialbusiness #socbiz
The Marbles have 300% more surface area!! So what does this have to do with Social?
Your voice gets magnified the more people in your network. Your POV and listening impacts the best solution.
Take a look at this picture where you have a tiered Marble impact. The upper tiers have impact and have direct linkage and work with a Social Business Manager. The term “brand ambassador” has been a round for ages, but do we really want to create brand ambassadors? The analogy isn’t quite right. Nor do we want to put pressure on people to mindlessly share content on their personal networks. So you need a bit more of a nuanced approach. An intentional social enablement system!
IBM has been working on a bunch of different enablement tiers that create an ecosystem of social enablement for IBMers. Starting with a foundation of guidelines and policy – see our Social Business Coffee Break from yesterday blog post! – and moving up to general education about social media, cybersecurity and reputation for all IBMers in the Digital IBMer hub. From that tier, IBMers can move into the Forward Thinker Program which enables them to be surfaced on ibm.com and other external experiences – and also to be identified for the IBM Select program, which is a small group of high-tough, bespoke plan enablement for the top tier. All of this is managed by people from many different areas within IBM – the social business managers…we’re not suggesting that we create a whole department of social business managers, but this is definitely an emerging set of skills that people need!
I'd love your thoughts on this approach!!!