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.”