Confessions of an eBiz Junkie

A Social Journey Meme - Year Two at EMC

Our corporate evolution in the past three years is nothing short of staggering. The way we work, collaborate and communicate at EMC today is dramatically different than it was just a few short years ago.

Polly Pearson is doing a bit to document the phases of our journey. As she notes, everyone's at a different point in the spectrum of readiness with regards to embracing the E2.0 movement. Having seen first-hand how our company has benefited from this transformation, I'm of the firm belief that it's a question of when, not if, every company embraces this new way of conducting business.

I'll rewind the clock and pick up the discussion in 2007. As Chuck notes in the comments of Polly's post, there were a few 'social' offerings in place in 2006. Mostly discussion forums and virtually all public facing. While each valuable in their own right, these things were largely disconnected from one other and not part of an over-arching strategy.

If, as Polly suggests, there was 'something in the air' in 2006, then 2007 would see us lay the foundational strategy that would ultimately guide us through the journey ahead.

Social Media, Knowledge Capital, and the Grateful Dead

The evolution to Enterprise 2.0 is bigger than the enabling tools. To me, it's about the fundamental rewiring of how corporations and their employees work, collaborate and think. It's a big deal, and likely a journey that will take us several years to truly figure out.

With regards to the way brands collaborate with one another, EMC and Cisco are leading the charge in my opinion, identifying new ways to partner and lay the foundation for the future. To that end, I was humbled when asked to present this week to Cisco employees via CiscoTV. The topic - EMC's journey in Social Media.

One of the topics covered was the transformation of today's workforce. We discussed the behavioral changes that were likely as the world explores new ways to work and collaborate. I had the pleasure of connecting with fellow guest-speaker Dr. Kit Yarrow (@GenBuy), co-author of the book Gen Buy. She and I talked a bit about knowledge capital, and our discussion is the foundation for this post.

Enterprise 2.0 - Now Comes the Hard Part

When I'd first heard the term, I thought Enterprise 2.0 meant the complete transformation of the enterprise to a new, more agile entity. Rather, it references the social software that's quickly becoming commonplace in the business world.

According to popular definition, I believe we've successfully deployed 'Enterprise 2.0'. Our internal community, EMC|ONE, continues to gain momentum and has become a pillar for internal collaboration at EMC. It's helped us achieve a degree of proficiency in the social web, and has helped us extend our reach outside the firewall with the EMC Community Network, our EMC bloggers, and a small army of EMC'ers on Twitter.

So, with regards to deploying social software, we're there. So the journey's done? Not even close...

Tips for Deploying Community in the Enterprise

I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at KMWorld 2009 before the holiday. It was an older blog post around the evolution of our corporate Intranet that first put me in touch with the KMWorld management team.

I spoke a bit about the transformation of the enterprise, highlighting our journey in both traditional and social channels. Putting together the story helped me reflect a bit on our journey and recall some of the key decisions that have helped us progress on our path. Some of these things I now take for granted, but based on discussions with other attendees, I realize many have yet to begin traveling this path. To that end, I wanted to share a few of the key takeaways...

Innovation Day at EMC

I have the absolute pleasure today of participating in EMC's Innovation Conference. It's hard to imagine a year has passed since our last event. As I type this, I sit in our Santa Clara facility (California) watching a live broadcast from Bangalore, India where EMC CTO Jeff Nick is opening the days ceremonies. Santa Clara is but one of 13 satellite sites across the globe participating in the days activities.

Breakthrough thinking, adding value to our customers, adding value to EMC, improving the industry at large and identifying ways to further encourage innovation are all among the criteria for idea submissions. This is a wonderful program that really helps highlight the incredible talent, thinking and creativity that thrives within our culture.

In 2007, this program generated about 400 ideas. This year, about 1500 submissions from across the globe made for a tough competition. Kudos to the team that invests the time to pull this together, those who submit ideas and to the culture that simply feeds on innovation.

As I sit here listening to Jeff review the 100 finalists, I'm struck by two things... Certainly the creativity and breadth of ideas is simply staggering. But the focus on the customer is the most impressive aspect to me. It's evident to me that improving our lives by advancing the digital world is among the core drivers for idea submitters and employees alike.

Also of note, just how much our social efforts are paying off. EMC|ONE is at the very hub of global collaboration for this program. Like any such offering, it connects people and effectively enables innovation on a global scale that was simply not possible a few short years ago.

I managed to spend a few minutes with Dan Campbell. Dan is Vice President of Sales for our Western Division, and is also the executive sponsor for the California based events taking place around the Innovation Conference. Dan provides his thoughts on the importance of innovation to EMC, and to our customers.

An Interview with EnterpriseLeadership.org

I'll be sure to tag this one with #ShamelessSelfPromotion ;)

The nice folks over at EnterpriseLeadership.org reached out some time ago and wanted to understand a bit more about our journey into the social realm - with focus on the internal side of the house. We ended up doing a brief video interview that I wanted to share.

A few bits from the discussion:

• Brands who do not embrace internal social / collaborative tools now will face a significant challenge (not to mention security risks) as employees flock to freely available and easily deployed external tools.
• We discuss our inside - out approach to SM, and how developing internal proficiencies has dramatically improved out evolution beyond the confines of our firewall.
• Be wary of the ROI game. Productivity gains, breakdown of organizational silos, employee affinity, enabling global collaboration, etc; - These are soft benefits, but will transform your business. Don't underestimate them.

Being Social and Saving Cake with Telepresence

Earlier this year, we started doing 'Social Media Socials' - where like-minded folks come together to discuss a variety of topics in the social space. I need to give a shout out to Stu Miniman (Blog) and Jamie Pappas (Blog) for the vision and for sustaining this wonderful forum.

I've attended as many as possible, and the conversations are always top-notch. Today we chatted with the team behind the RSA Conference and learned how they're creatively leveraging Social Media to enhance the conference.

To give you a sense of other topics, we recently discussed "Twitter for Business", starting with the 100k foot definition of micro-blogging and quickly getting into details covering topics like listening, brand affiliation, and pro's and con's of reach. Fantastic conversations filled with 'ah-ha' moments... Ultimately strengthening our Enterprise 2.0 proficiency across the workforce.

It's a great program and clearly helps to drive awareness, build a stronger sense of community, and enable collaboration and innovation. Definitely something to consider if you're working to drive SM and E2.0 across your organization.

So what does this have to do with saving cake ($$$)?

We tried something new this go, leveraging our Telepresence infrastructure. If you're not familiar, Telepresence is a video conferencing solution from Cisco that enables high-quality video & audio connections between campuses. 

We have around 7 Telepresence 'rooms' in place today with another 20 or so on the way. So far this year, I'd guess I've avoided at least 3 trips thanks to this offering. No planes, hotels, rental cars, etc;. A brief jaunt down the hall and I'm sitting face to face with my peers in Massachusetts, Ireland and London.

You'll pardon the rough photo from my iPhone - but you're looking at the room I was in here in California. The folks in the left and right panels were in MA while the center screen is our very own StorageZilla all the way from Cork Ireland. 

As you can see, Telepresence offers a very intimate 'conference room' feel and, from my POV, changes the game with regards to long distance communication and collaboration.

Changing Behaviors

Can you teach Social Media skills? There's a great blog post and subsequent discussion happening over at Adam Cohen's blog.

I land squarely in the 'absolutely yes' camp - But perhaps with a bit of a twist.

I believe we have two crowds in the workforce today. Those who have grown up online, and consider communicating via text messages as routine as eating food, and those who haven't. For the latter, the notion of sharing and collaborating to the degree we do online often seems foreign and perhaps even ludicrous.

From a business perspective, there is one common denominator. You have to set the ground rules.

Regardless if you're a power blogger or if you're first Tweet was a lifetime event for you, there needs to be common rules of the road. First and foremost, establish your over-arching guidelines for acceptable and desired behavior.

So back to training... In a business environment, I'm all about establishing proficiency across the employee population.

I see this as different from training around Social Media (hence the twist). Yes there is a need to understand the tools at hand and how to leverage... To me, it's more about the fundamental shift in the way we were taught to operate. I compare the business world today to that of the mid 90's - It's a completely different playing field.

As we go through our journey at EMC embracing E2.0, I see walls breaking down. I see dramatic shifts in the way we communicate internally and externally. I see new management styles being employed - with far more matrixed collaboration than ever before... The list goes on and on.

We are operating in a fundamentally different way than we have in years past - and have only scratched the surface.

To expedite and get the most of this transformation, I believe foundational training in enterprise 2.0 techniques and behaviors is absolutely crucial. I see Social Media training as a component of this, but would want to re-introduce employees to the new ways to engage and interact behaviorally in a 2.0 world first.

Thanks Adam, for spinning up this discussion. I'd like to think that some type of E2.0 education will be common place in the business world in the very near future.

The Open vs Closed Debate - Part XLIV

An interesting little observation from our journey into the social realm that I wanted to share... Let me start by setting some context...

We built EMC|ONE way back when with several intentions. Among them - helping our global employees get comfortable with enterprise 2.0 tools and techniques. As part of this, we've very much resisted the urge to create protected or gated spaces (Remember that EMC|ONE is inside the firewall - so the community consists of employees only). Our over-arching thinking - the more eyes on a conversation the better. Transparent and open dialog is far more valuable than discussions in silos.

I've noted it before - The vast majority of those who propose a new topical space on EMC|ONE want it closed by default. We usually have a healthy conversation, asking what's so secretive that the conversation or content cannot be exposed to fellow employees. In virtually EVERY instance, the new community manager comes around and proceeds with an open forum - One that ends up being MUCH more productive and vibrant that it would have been had it been roped off.

The Blurring Lines of Work and Life

Here's a simple question that I've been pondering a bit of late...

When you participate in the social realm - such as a comment on Twitter or updating your Facebook status - Who do you represent? Yourself? Your employer? Both?

I'm always cautious about what I post. Perhaps to a fault. I'll consider all sorts of angles from potential audience to potential misinterpretation. There's no doubt that my contributions in public forum are influenced by my affiliation with EMC. I'm not suggesting this is right or wrong - it's how I'm wired.

Let me give you an example. I'll make it fictitious to cover myself (see, there I go again).