Tranforming a culture with sandwiches

Regular readers of this blog know that, among other things on the docket, we're in the midst of deploying Social Media across the enterprise. EMC has some 36k employees. Like email 20 years ago, introducing invasive technology requires some level of cultural change.

With such a large employee base, awareness of all things social ranges from extreme power users to those who really aren't sure what Web 2.0, Social Media, Social networking, E2.0, etc - is.

We've gone back to basics to help get the word out - and it's working...

I'm fortunate to be part of a very talented and creative team of people working to make Social Media a fundamental part of how we communicate. Without any formal launch of the site - without any fanfare at all - our internal community now has 4k active participants and upwards of 7k lurkers. Growth is about 200 people per week. In a word, it's been fantastic.

To my earlier point, we have those who dream of wiki markup languages in their sleep as well as those who haven't a clue what WML is. The challenge on the team - drive awareness, help users become proficient, take the mystique out of Social Media and help drive adoption.

Imagine my pleasant surprise when Jamie and Chris (two superstars on the team) approached advising they'd put together a lunch and learn program. No prompting... They just identified the challenge, dealt with logistics, posted a note on the internal community and *poof* were done.

We have three under our belt. I was able to attend todays session where about 50 people signed up. Fantastic questions... Everything from -

"What's the difference between a wiki and a blog?" to "In an Web 2.0 world, how does your audience determine what's authoritative content versus opinion?".

This was supposed to be a 30 minute session. We ended up getting kicked out of the room an hour later as someone else had it booked. There's clearly great passion and demand from people with varying levels of experience.

My point here - if you're working to transform a culture as we are - go back to basics. Set up some time and have an open invite for anyone that wants to attend. In my experience, rooms fill fast... There's a strong desire to learn - and, if you're reading this - you likely have something to share.... Seize the opportunity and help people understand what you already know. If done right, you might be surprised how quickly the community starts to gel on it's own.

If you're in a similar position - share your experience. What are you doing to help build your community?

Comments

[Adam Cohen]

Len,
Great to see the initiative taking off with such success. We are embarking on an education campaign for starters. This week, I am leading a social media interest group session to a) build a primer on social media in general and b) develop a methodology/framework for approaching social media with clients. We are going to start internal "roadshows" to different groups and have 2-3 more friendly clients in mind or already lined up to participate. I'll keep you posted how we make out but we already have anecdotal information about a lot of demand. For example: Our fun internal event (http://adamcohen.typepad.com/adamsblog/2008/03/work-hard-play.html) leveraging social media introduced people to twitter and uncovered a bunch of personal blogs out there that we intend to leverage similar to your earlier consolidation of EMC blogs.

Good times, and thanks for sharing!

[Ameel]

The ITS department at Melbourne Business School is doing something similar with its Lunchtime Sessions. Usually someone from the ITS team will do a quick presentation on a useful technology -- generally something that will make everyone's life easier or will enhance productivity -- after which we'll have a discussion on how it can be used within our organization.

The last one was on content syndication (though we called it 'RSS' since that's the most well known buzzword) and we got staff from all over the school -- from marketing, finance, HR, etc. -- really excited about the power of news feeds. This also ties in nicely with our upcoming attempt to phase out widely circulated announcement-type e-mails and getting people to self-select the internal communication news feeds that they're interested in.

ITS holds these sessions every month and they're getting increasingly popular.

[Len Devanna]

Adam / Ameel - Thanks for the comments. I might actually start posting up some of the presentation materials we're using. Just need to scrub and ensure there's nothing sensitive in there.

I'm stunned by the thirst for knowledge in this space. I'd venture to guess it will take about 3 - 4 months for our jobs to evolve from "Hey everyone, come look at how cool this stuff is' to 'Man, I wish we could just bring some sanity to the propagation of this stuff'...

Time will tell.

[Jen Harris]

I have been educating, gaining trust, getting buy-in, transforming misconceptions of 2.0 from the top down.
Started w/the EVP's, then the VP's, then their mgrs...etc.
I have a Power Point that outlines the phases, the goals in each phase and the future of what we want to accomplish by the end of the year. I also have a WordPress blog that I educate on 2.0, but also write about the process that we are going through...struggles & all.
Because I came from a WOM Marketing Firm I understand 2.0 very well...but have had to communicate to my own Director that it is NOT about the 4p's and pushing info to customers, rather it is about them pulling data, opting in...and we have to provide non-salesy (this is now a new word) content for them to pull into their world.
Very slow process, but not one person has said (after education of course) this is dumb/stupid: why don't we do a national commercial?