Confessions of an eBiz Junkie

Crisis preparedness - Are you ready?

It's always interesting to watch how brands deal with a crisis when they arise. As example, JetBlue had their hands full this week with an unfortunate situation at 36k feet. The good news, the brand reacted swiftly and confidently, suggesting they have a well-established crisis response framework in place.

But it seems JetBlue may be in the minority here. There are endless examples of brands seemingly caught completely unprepared for the inevitable. In a study by Burson-Masrsteller, a whopping 79% of business decision makers believe their company will experience a crisis within the next twelve months.

So why then do only 38% of global respondents feel that they are prepared to deal with an emerging crisis through new media?

In our socially-connected world, every customer has a microphone, an audience and an opinion. Brands must be prepared for a potential crisis. In a best-case scenario, crisis planning never sees the light of day. But more often than not, advanced planning can help manage, and often times mitigate, a crisis from causing irreparable damage to your brand.

So what's your level of crisis preparedness? 

@LenDevanna

 

 

The Journey to the Engaged Enterprise

Back in 2007, we set out on a journey to fundamentally transform the way we do business. We knew at the time that this wasn't as simple as flipping a 'social switch', spinning up a community or establishing a brand presence on Facebook.

Rather, we knew that we were embarking on something really big and transformative. We knew that the journey would be challenging, but also exciting, and that the rewards on the other side were simply enormous.

A bit over three years in and I think we're well on track. We've established an extremely high-degree of 'social proficiency' across our global workforce, and use tools such as EMC|ONE, the EMC Community Network, Facebook and many other channels to engage our audiences in new and meaningful ways.

Lots of Little Data = Big Data

Wow. Well that was quite the event. If you missed it, EMC unveiled 41 new or revamped products - likely the biggest launch in the history of EMC.

I'll leave all of the cool details around the products themselves to our industry elites... As a primer, Chuck shares an overview, as does Chad, Barry and 'Zilla.

eBiz types can rest easy knowing that Social was an integral part of the event. Between a buzz building campaign leading up to 1/18, some Facebook fun to help drive speculation, live Q&A via the EMC Community Network, and much more.

Given all of the effort that went into this, I'm happy to report that #EMCBreaksRecords trended nationally on Twitter during the event, and that social activity was responsible for approximately 28% of traffic to EMCBreaksRecords.com web site.

But what struck me most during the event had little to do with the launch itself, nor social per se... EMC CEO Joe Tucci was on stage talking about the history of EMC, and providing some thoughts about the future of information...

The Evolving Enterprise

I'll be boarding a plane midweek and taking off for some much needed time on a tropical island and off the digital grid. I'll be radio silent while away, avoiding the temptations of Twitter, Facebook, blogging and the like.

While away, I wanted to leave you with a presentation given at JiveWorld 2010 a couple of weeks back. During the discussion, I shared a bit about EMC's journey to becoming a socially proficient company. We've done some great things, learned some invaluable lessons, and still have much work ahead. The slides are below, and Jive has also provided a video of the discussion. I'm hoping there are a lesson or two in there that can help you on your journey.

Talk soon... In the meantime, Aloha!

The Transforming Enterprise

View more presentations from Len Devanna.

See You at JiveWorld 2010?

There's nothing I enjoy more than sharing some of the lessons learned during our journey to become a truly socially enabled company. In fact, I've learned SO MUCH from the larger community over the years that it seems only fair to return the favor. After all, we're in this together, and are collectively building the communications model of tomorrow... Cool stuff.

I'll have a chance to share a bit about our journey next week at JiveWorld 2010 here in San Francisco. The speaking roster is packed with some of the best in the biz - it's sure to be an information-packed event.

Unfortunately, it looks like the conference itself is sold out. That's not to suggest you can't directly benefit from the great content coming from the show... Simply follow along via hashtag #JW10.

Will you be there? I'd love to connect. Drop a note in the comments or ping me via @LenDevanna on Twitter... Hopefully we'll see you there!

Visited EMC's Communities, Lately?

Did you know that EMC has a wealth of online communities under the umbrella of our EMC Community Network, or the 'ECN'?

With about 90k active members, the ECN is constantly abuzz with activity. Conversations are taking place around the clock, and on a global scale. EMC'ers are collaborating with customers and partners alike, discussing current products, co-innovating on futures, so much more.

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...

New FTC Guidelines and Social Marketing

On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission approved revisions to the guidelines it gives advertisers on appropriate use of endorsement and testimonial ads.

The update includes new examples to reinforce the notion that connections between advertisers and endorsers (connections that may not be obvious to consumers) must be disclosed. These are timely updates with the continued emergence of word of mouth marketing via the social web. 

From my point of view, this is a welcomed update. We continually work to understand the online behaviors of our audience. Peer to peer content continues to be among the most trusted sources of information during the buying cycle, regardless of size of purchase. Before purchasing just about any product, I always turn to opinions of others for perspective.

The notion of paid blogging (and micro-blogging) has been an emerging and heavily debated trend for some time. To me, exploiting consumer trust by seeding fictitious or paid 'peer reviews' is simply bad business, and runs the risk of truly damaging the credibility of user-generated content and the social web in general.

There's much more detail in the entire update for those interested.  I look forward to digesting a bit more, but in the meantime, will continue to take the approach of transparency rules... It's the safe and proper approach.

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.