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.
EMC ONE (Our internal community) is one year old this week... It sure as heck doesn't seem like it's been a whole year.