Using Social Media for Collaboration

Using Social Technology
to drive
Collaboration and
Productivity

Objective
Leveraging technology to create a
social layer that spans an entire
organization, pulling together
relevant people, content and systems
of record to increase collaboration
and productivity.

Goals
1. Improve communication
2. Foster innovation
3. Break-down silos
4. Facilitate learning
5. Discover people, products & content
6. Manage information
7. Collaborate on projects

1. Lack of Social Culture
1. Your department needs to start with a
fundamentally communicative culture, one
where open sharing and collaboration is
encouraged.
2. Examine corporate culture first and create a
more receptive environment for internal
social tools.

2. Lack of Public Participation
1. Getting people to use new technology is
often a tough sell, and requires
perseverance.
2. The flip side of this is that you may see more
immediate adoption from team members
who are already social media enthusiasts.
3. Identify team members who use social tools
to communicate outside of work and enlist
them first.

3. Lack of Training
1. Without proper training, those who aren’t as
familiar with social networking may feel left out
or even overwhelmed.
2. First re-examine how your team works, how
they communicate and how to appropriately use
the new social tools to enhance work and
communications.
3. Provide written guidelines and training across
the board, regardless of social media skills, to
ensure everyone knows what is expected of
them.

4. Lack of Executive Support
1. Executives often want to dive into social
media, but without getting everyone on
board.
2. On other hand, executives are often too
focused on ROI, and are hesitant to try new
tools.
3. Right metrics have to be used to measure
effectiveness of new tools and procedures.

5. Lack of Willingness
1. Make sure the parameters you set up for
internal use of social media tools are based
on encouraging professional
exchanges, expanding internal knowledge
bases, increasing collaboration, and helping
to improve communications.
2. Be respectful of individuals who may not
want to be so personal in a professional
setting.

1. People within a department are spending too
much time trying to communicate changes
and updates.
2. People within a department are not as
informed as they need to be.
3. Created content is not used.
4. KPIs are not performing as they could be, as
people are unable to keep pace with
changes, and are bogged down by e-mail.

5. It is hard to locate needed expertise.
6. Opportunities are missed because people
lack awareness of what's going on around
them.
7. It takes a long time to onboard new
employees because of "tribal knowledge.”
8. Employees have little means to get to know
anyone who is outside of their department
or physical space.

1 2 3 4 5
Internal & Social Strategy & Selection Team Project
External Media Metrics of Tools Training Launch
Audit Team

Continuous Measurement and Optimization

1. Audit
1. Identify departmental need.
2. Examine everyday challenges.
3. Perform competitive research.

2. Social Media Team
1. Build a cross-functional, cross-departmental
team responsible for establishing a social
media strategy.
2. Offering team training and guidance to help
create a manageable and measurable
strategy.

3. Establishing a Strategy
1. Based on the needs assessment, identify
areas of improvement.
2. Create a roadmap to increase internal
communication and collaboration.
3. Establish proper metrics to measure
effectiveness and productivity.

4. Selection of Tools
1. Based on what needs to be
accomplished, identify the proper mix of
tools.
2. Run a pilot project to ensure that these are
the right tools.

5. Team Training
1. Offer ongoing support and training to help
employees get acquainted with new
technology.
2. Use employee feedback to refine your
strategy.
3. Get support from the executives.

LAUNCH
1. Launch a pilot project.
2. Measure your results.
3. Offer ongoing support and guidance.
4. Share your findings.
5. Refine your approach.

1. KPIs that are effected by formal processes
across multiple departments are improved.
2. People involved in cross-department projects
are more efficient; they have more time for
thoughtful, value-added work vs. spending
time trying to coordinate with each other.
3. Work output is more timely; problems are
addressed as they occur.
4. Content is accessible and reused.

5. People across the organization can easily
locate expertise needed to inform their
projects and decisions.
6. People across departments can recognize
and take advantage of opportunities, quickly
and on their own initiative.
7. New employees are onboarded quickly.
8. Employees know each other and have a
stronger commitment to their co-workers.

Challenge: Supply chain company who’s employees
in North America, Europe and Asia need to have
access to information about complex processes.
Solution: “The Grid”, social intranet where
employees share and update best
practices, technical product knowledge and key
sales & marketing materials.
Benefits: GT Nexus serves customers more
efficiently, responds to change faster, and captures
valuable institutional knowledge.

Challenge: Accountants are constantly asked the
same questions, but their answers are not shared
internally and are not being reused.
Solution: Multi-user blog dedicated to sharing
answers to the FAQ.
Benefits: Streamline the process of answering client
questions, shortening the response time and ability
to constantly perfect answers.

Challenge: Manage customer service section of the
website, timely respond to questions, and establish
a sense of community.
Solution: Build a private WIKI allowing users to
answer questions, post valuable content, and
connect with each other.
Benefits: 46% of questions are answered by other
users, rather than by members of NI’s staff. Each of
those calls would likely cost at least $10 if NI had to
answer them themselves.

Email: mloban@infotrustllc.com
LinkedIN: linkedin.com/in/mloban
Twitter: @iwanttobesocial
Facebook facebook.com/infotrust
Website: infotrustllc.com
Event Website: infotrustllc.com/upcoming
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Using Social Media for Collaboration

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