EDITOR’S NOTE ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION: IT’S GAME TIME

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Enterprise Social Networking: Collaborate SeamlesslyCIOs have swung from dismissing social networking to applauding and seizing upon its potential for boosting business productivity and creativity.

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The Sweet Sound of Social Networking

If a single email lands in a single inbox, does it make a sound? OK, that’s an easy answer: It depends on the recipient’s personal inbox set-tings. But if a single post lands on your com-pany’s intranet or is shared via another internal communications tool, you can bet it will make some metaphorical noise—and, in front of so many eyes, it might turn into a profitable pros-pect for your business.

Enterprise social networking comprises a lot more than tweeting your company’s latest press release or posting a photo of your newest product line on Facebook, Instagram or Pin-terest. Yes, your customers are out there and interacting with your company through these channels—so keep it up—but also consider that many of your employees would prefer to share ideas through social networks rather than singular emails or face-to-face communiqué, especially if they work in different offices or even time zones. In this handbook, SearchCIO

explores various aspects of social networking and explains how to keep your best employees engaged through enterprise platforms.

In our first piece, business writer Christine Parizo looks at how organizations such as the San Jose Sharks are using social networks and gamification to steer employees toward produc-tive online interactions. In our second piece, columnist Harvey Koeppel traces the evolu-tion of communications from smoke signals to SMAC—social, mobile, analytics and cloud. In our final piece, CTO Niel Nickolaisen shares his own experiences with enterprise networking, offering valuable advice to CIOs undertaking their own social implementations.

Hear that ding emanating from your intranet? It’s the sweet sound of a budding business opportunity. Seize it. n

Rachel LebeauxSenior Managing Editor

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Enterprise Social Networking: It’s Game Time

When the results of an employee engage-ment survey came in, the San Jose Sharks hockey club realized its employees were low on team spirit. The survey showed employees felt disconnected from the company; email and a physical bulletin board in a cramped pantry weren’t cutting it.

The feeling of disconnection was exacerbated by the fact that the Sharks family was spread far and wide. In addition to its employees at the SAP Center in San Jose, Sharks Sports & Entertainment Inc. also includes the Worcester Sharks, an American hockey league franchise based in Worcester, Mass., as well as employ-ees at several other locations in northern California.

As part of a broader employee engagement strategy, the franchise wanted a social software platform that would keep employees updated and foster a sense of community, said Fiona Giuffre, the company’s vice president of people.

Additionally, the San Jose Sharks’ marketing team wanted the ability to collaborate with business partners and associates.

The franchise, which is owned partially by German software company SAP, was using an SAP-affiliated human capital management sys-tem before the SAP investment: cloud-based SuccessFactors. The decision was made to go with SAP Jam, a cloud-based social software platform that incorporates elements of the SuccessFactors platform. With the enterprise social network (ESN) tool choice made, the platform was launched in late March, and the question then became how to get employees to use it.

GAMIFICATION BRINGS

MILLENNIALS INTO THE FOLD

The Sharks offered workshops in Jam, showing how the platform could be used to stay current

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on hockey operations, employee activities and annual performance reviews, Giuffre said. The organization also set up work groups, as well as groups for things like the internal softball and basketball teams.

“Also, when we went live, we made it fun for employees,” Giuffre said.

The Sharks created scavenger hunts and offered prizes, such as iPads, for successful completion of challenges. Employees were encouraged to use their own, informal pictures instead of corporate headshots as their pro-file pictures, adding a personal touch to the platform.

With the gamification elements, use of the platform has taken off, Guiffre said. “I don’t think gamification works at every company, but we’re entertainment, and we have a lot of Millennials.” The scavenger hunts, health and wellness groups, and other personal touches engage Sharks’ employees while also providing a frictionless way to keep them in the loop on company strategy.

“A lot of our broader communications ... aren’t flooding email anymore,” Guiffre said. As important, the networking tool is improving

the franchises’ customer service by allowing employees to offer their own suggestions on merchandise and fan festivals to provide a bet-ter experience to hockey fans.

ESN TO GET WORK DONE, REDUCE EMAIL

Rob Koplowitz, vice president and principal analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based consultancy Forrester Research, said the decision to find an ESN platform that is compatible with exist-ing back-end systems makes a lot of sense. “Jam is becoming more highly integrated with back-end SAP processes, [and social platforms] are all about extending the process and getting work done,” he said.

Additionally, ESN platforms definitely help break down geographical and organiza-tional boundaries, Koplowitz said. “There are whole parts of the company where expertise is located, and [employees] can’t find it,” he said. Again, much of the value of these platforms comes from using social to forge connections among employees who might not otherwise connect, and coordinate activities across the organization, he said.

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This certainly rang true for Buffalo, N.Y.-based Superior Group. The global outsourcing firm had reached its limit with the company’s existing intranet in 2011 and wondered whether it was worth the trouble to maintain.

“We have employees all over the world [and] wanted some way to bring them together using modern technology,” said Frank Gullo, director of digital and mobile strategy.

The company also wanted to find a way to better engage and train employees while reduc-ing email usage and network file usage.

“We wanted a platform for employees to help grow their skills,” Gullo said. That meant implementing a platform with content man-agement capability that could handle, for example, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) documents the firm adheres to and employee training records.

Moving away from email as a corporate communication tool is actually a smart goal, according to Forrester’s Koplowitz. An enter-prise social networking tool increases the value of corporate communication by connecting the communiqué with the company’s knowledge base, as Superior Group wanted to do with its

ISO documents and some companies have done with employee onboarding, he said. At com-panies using ESNs, for example, the onboard-ing process happens faster and goes more smoothly.

“It’s not true for all communications,” Koplowitz cautioned, noting that some infor-mation will still need to remain private, and a zero-email initiative may not work.

GAMIFICATION CONSIDERATIONS

To select an ESN tool that would connect and help train employees, Frank Gullo, direc-tor of digital and mobile strategy at Superior Group, created a team that not only included executive-level management, but also stake-holders in IT, HR, legal and communications to review demos, conduct detailed comparisons and decide on a platform. Ultimately, the com-pany chose IBM Connections, in part because Superior Group also was using other IBM soft-ware, Gullo said. Minimal customization would help get users on the platform faster; plus, the interface incorporated elements of popular consumer social platforms.

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“Many of our workforce use LinkedIn, Face-book and Twitter,” Gullo said. “We thought Connections was similar enough so that users could jump in and get started right away.”

Of course, no implementation is without challenges, and the fact that Superior Group employs a multigenerational workforce, includ-ing old-school traditionalists, led to some ini-tial user resistance. “Getting people to deviate from their comfort zone is a challenge,” Gullo said.

Gamification and letting employees use the platform as a social forum proved key. The firm enticed employees to vote on ideas and gave them rewards for participating. To underscore the social aspect of the workplace platform, the firm launched an employee highlights section, interviewing people on hobbies and interests. For example, one employee confessed being enthralled by the Game of Thrones television series, and other employees flocked to the plat-form to share their opinions, Gullo recalled. “With initiatives like that, we’re seeing more people jumping on Connections,” he said.

Gamifying internal and external collabora-tion was also what got users at New York-based

global consultancy Bluewolf on board with Salesforce Chatter, according to Corinne Sklar, global chief marketing officer. When the firm’s consultants uploaded content that their peers

and clients shared and engaged with, they would get points; the platform also helped the consultants build their personal brands, she said.

Not every employee has been receptive, but Sklar said the company continues to boost adoption by creating content and incentives that appeal to the different demographics, including recent college graduates and more senior consultants. The company also offered webinars and short videos on how to use the platform.

When Bluewolf consultants uploaded content that peers and clients shared and engaged with, they would get points; the platform also helped them build their personal brands.

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And, overall, adoption has been strong. “Everybody is looking for ways to communicate more effectively,” Sklar said. Even the CEO has been using Chatter for Q&As, she added.

ESN, FINANCIAL-SERVICES STYLE

At New York-based NorthStar Realty Securi-ties, enterprise social networking was imple-mented in the form of Salesforce Chatter for many of the same reasons the Sharks and Superior Group picked their platforms: the Chatter ESN integrated well with existing sys-tems and would be easy for salespeople to use. However, because NorthStar operates in the financial space, a heavily regulated industry, content needs to be kept professional—no cat PowerPoints for this company, according to Kristen Whealon, chief compliance officer.

In accordance with Financial Industry Regulatory Authority obligations, NorthStar archives all content on Chatter using Smarsh, which is why the company wanted to avoid personal communications on its platform, Whealon said. “We made it very clear that peo-ple need to think twice before adding things to

Chatter.”However, that hasn’t stopped NorthStar

from using Chatter to enhance communica-tion and build a knowledge base, said Trey Killingsworth, vice president of strategic accounts. Killingsworth tags his team members in posts to alert them to new information and uses hashtags—things that can’t be done in email. This creates an easier way to search for information.

“It’s actually fantastic,” he said. “If you put in any information, even without a hashtag, you can find it in your ongoing [Chatter] feed.

VIRTUALIZING PERSONAL TOUCH

ISN’T FOR EVERYBODY

Enterprise social network tools don’t dif-fer much from their consumer counterparts, according to Forrester’s Koplowitz. “Many of them are quite good,” he said, noting that they are developed in the same way as consumer-grade social networks, using A/B testing. What makes it difficult for these ESN platforms to gain traction isn’t the tools themselves, but how people work in the enterprise on a daily

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basis. “The piece that’s constantly in the back-ground is email,” Koplowitz said.

Additionally, some companies fear losing the personal touch that has become part of their

cultures. For Chicago-based air purification systems manufacturer Blueair, an ESN wouldn’t help with its communication aspects, according to Justin Warren, customer service manager.

“We all sit out in the open in one giant office. There are no cubicles. If anyone has an issue, we are completely fine with them just asking it to the group and seeing if anyone can shout

back an answer,” Warren said. However, Blueair is a small company, which can have the luxury of simple emails.

Still, Blueair hasn’t ruled out enterprise social networks completely. It may help as the company grows to have a way to field inquiries and provide customer service in different lan-guages, Warren said.

Ultimately, companies with distributed workforces are finding value in enterprise social networking because it provides one place for communication and reduces email threads. It also provides knowledge bases and ways of getting to know colleagues across the globe. However, fast-adopters and experts alike agree that companies need to evaluate how they do business before choosing an ESN tool.

—Christine Parizo

With ESN, some companies fear losing the personal touch that has become part of their cultures.

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Digital Business From Smoke Signals to SMAC

With the evolution of technology, we have moved from closed systems of commu-nication to open (social) platforms. We have moved from physical ground-based systems to disconnected radio-based (mobile) systems. We have moved from explicit content prose to the deduced and inferred meaning (analytics) of messaging, and from self-sourced location-specific data centers to utilitarian (cloud) forms of interaction. The uptake of social, mobile, analytics and cloud—SMAC—technologies has profoundly and indelibly changed the way we work and play and, as with most things in life, there are implications.

RISE OF THE DIGITAL BUSINESS ERA

“Not getting any bars on your phone? That doesn’t mean you can’t communicate with faraway friends. Just send them a smoke signal …” —excerpt from “How to Send Smoke Signals”

While many of us are intrigued by smoke signals (see “A Brief History of the Smoke Signal,” page 11) and still derive visceral plea-sure from the warmth, sights, sounds and smells emanating from the flames and smoke that billow from a good campfire (not to men-tion the marshmallows and hot dogs), the con-fluence of social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies has in fact ushered in a new era of business capability. To distinguish this phase of commercial evolution from that which came before, let’s refer to it as the digital business era. To best understand the implications of the DBE (sorry, I just could not resist), it is important to look at the major technologies that define it.

Social media/networking technologies have totally transformed the way in which people communicate and interact with each other and with businesses. Sharing your content is no longer about writing letters, sending emails or placing advertising in print or online media

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outlets. It is now about posting your content to your wall or your website or your blog site, and also tweeting, texting and instant messag-ing. Physical meeting and interaction is rapidly being replaced by virtual communication: Cir-cles of friends, family or business colleagues, which in the past were kept separate, have been replaced with virtual and overlapping com-munities of personal and business friends and family.

Mobile technologies have totally transformed where and when we communicate and interact with each other, essentially eliminating space and time boundaries almost entirely. One no longer needs to be home to receive the letter or phone call or wait until the store opens at 8:30 a.m. to buy the whatever. Importantly, mobile technologies have also enabled us to attend the staff meeting from in front of the campfire and not need to share the marshmallows.

Analytics technologies have completely changed how we determine whom to connect with on what topics, which products to buy or where to find the best deal. The broad net cast by marketing and advertising based upon (pre-sumed) demographic segments of readers or

viewers is rapidly being honed and finely tuned. The act of learning how to understand each of us uniquely and to communicate with us as individuals is often referred to as segment of one marketing and sales.

Cloud technologies, even in early stages of mass-market adoption, have already made a tremendous impact upon how we acquire tech-nology and, even more significantly, allow us to be untethered from our resources, whether they be work-related programs and data or play-related music and video. We can access our digital stuff from anywhere at any time, and in a relatively carefree manner.

Our world is filled with both consumer and commercial examples of how people and com-panies are embracing these technologies in ways that dramatically demonstrate the power

Mobile technologies have totally transformed where and when we communicate and interact with each other, eliminating space and time boundaries almost entirely.

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of the digital business model. Companies like Frito Lay and Ben & Jerry’s engage their cus-tomers through both traditional and social media channels to vote for the next flavor of potato chips or ice cream. Big box stores rou-tinely make use of customer analytics to deter-mine which products to offer their customers,

and when they detect—via geofencing technol-ogy—that customers are within close proxim-ity to their stores, they send text messages to the customer’s mobile phones with discount coupons for products related to those already purchased. In this way, stores hope to attract customers and sales that likely would not have

D A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SMOKE SIGNAL

Perhaps one of the earliest forms of text messaging, smoke signals were used by ancient Chinese soldiers sta-

tioned along the Great Wall to expediently notify each other of threats up to 500 miles away.

Around 150 BC, the Greek historian Polybius advanced smoke signal technology considerably with the invention

of the “Polybius Square,” an early form of message encryption that required the sender and receiver to utilize a

pre-determined cipher to originate and decode the message. The Germans and Japanese used similar crypto-

graphic techniques during WWI.

Indigenous North American people made extensive use of smoke signal communication, often using the distance

up the hill from which the signal originated as the means to identify message content; for example, smoke billow-

ing from the top of the hill generally indicated danger.

The Boy Scouts of America use three puffs of smoke to signal trouble or the need for assistance. Perhaps the

most popular application of smoke signals still in use today is made by the College of Cardinals in Rome to com-

municate the status of an election process underway to choose the new Pope—black smoke meaning no decision,

white smoke indicating that a new Pope has been elected.—H.K.

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occurred through traditional means.

THE CIO IMPLICATIONS

For CIOs there are, as always, clear challenges and opportunities. As we enter the 2015 plan-ning and budgeting cycle, it’s a great time to reflect upon the implications of living and working in the digital business era. Here are a few things to think about:

n It’s all about the customer. In the digital busi-ness era, largely driven by social, mobile, ana-lytics and cloud technologies, customers have access to more information about products and services and, importantly, can learn about other customers’ experiences with products and services throughout all phases of identify-ing and evaluating product alternatives. This can help inform purchase decisions and the use or consumption of products and services. This proliferation of information has and will continue to shift the balance of power from the seller to the buyer. If your enterprise does not already have a customer experience program (beyond customer relationship management)

in place, it is time to start thinking about one. If you already have one in place, consider how it can be enhanced and leveraged for competi-tive differentiation. Ultimately, this is all about

supporting your business partners in driving increased revenue through customer satisfac-tion, retention, cross-sell and up-sell. Your business partners will thank you.

n BYOD is being replaced by BYOF. If you believe that BYOD (bring your own device) is about network architecture, cybersecurity, provision-ing, device management and reducing costs, think again. It’s really about bring your own friends (BYOF). As the next generation of employees enters the workforce, bringing their own smartphones is a given. Enterprises have

If you believe that BYOD is about network architecture, cyber- security, provisioning, device management and reducing costs, think again. It’s really about bring your own friends.

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become increasingly mature around how to provision and manage these resources. What is not so obvious and a much bigger challenge to management is how to cope with the use of social media and social networking that is embedded within these devices. The integra-tion of social and business affairs within one’s singular community of friends and family requires clear policies, guidelines, management tools and methodologies to both leverage the value of social networking and simultaneously protect enterprise assets in this newly com-ingled world. Your coworkers will thank you.

n The nature of leadership and management

is changing. The historical command-and-control style of management is giving way to

com-munity-and-collaboration. Organizations are becoming more flat and stakeholders are linked more horizontally than vertically. Increasingly, links of the supply chain are being replaced with partnerships or outsourced service providers. In this environment, man-agement by decree will become less effective. Partner relationship management based upon clearly defined business outcomes, and in an environment of mutual respect and trust, will become increasingly more important. Consider how you work with and manage third-party relationships today and begin to examine how sustainable and scalable these relationships will be in the digital business era. Your shareholders will thank you. —Harvey Koeppel

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THE REAL NIEL

Social Networking is the New Email

I remember life before email. Back then, communication and collaboration were slow, difficult and only happened during business hours. Before email, I used an office telephone to arrange things. Many of my calls went unan-swered and directly to voicemail. To arrange a meeting around others’ schedules was a night-mare. If I had a great idea in the evening, I wrote it down and tracked down the recipients of my great idea sometime in the next day or two. I wrote memoranda and sent them through interoffice mail (yes, I am old). Communication was slow and could not happen at the pace of business.

Then email came along and my life changed. I could communicate with large numbers of people in a single swoop. I could check sched-ules before inviting others to a meeting. I could communicate anytime and—once smartphones came along—anywhere. I could throw work-life balance out the window and spend every

waking hour reading and writing email. I could spend a portion of every vacation day getting the evil eye from my wife as I tried to explain, “Just let me finish this one message before we climb to the Parthenon.”

Email changed our lives. It got us much closer to real-time communication. But it has been a few years since email graced our lives. The pace of change has accelerated, driven by technology. Our need for communication and collaboration is near instantaneous. We often need to get the right people together to make a decision, and it needs to happen right now. We also need to quickly sort through options and alternatives right now. Fortunately, since the creation of email, we have tools designed just for such instantaneous communication and collaboration: social networking tools, and they have a clear place in the enterprise.

I have found there are two ways for IT to handle social networking in the enterprise.

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One is to fight tooth and nail to discourage the tools, question their business value or their security, and wonder if such tools will lead to a culture of goofing off at the workplace. Invari-ably, such IT leaders and departments eventu-ally give in, but along the way earn a reputation as being stodgy, obstructionist and in the way of progress. The other way is to embrace, pro-mote and experiment with social networking tools. Invariably, such IT leaders and depart-ments are viewed as business-centric and advanced. Which would you rather be? If you want to be in the second group, here are some things I have found that work:

■n Find out what constitutes the leading edge of

social networking. Somewhere in your organi-zation, you have avid social networkers who know what tools work the best. They know which messaging, video and real-time collab-oration tools have the best mobile versions. They know which ones integrate best with your enterprise tools. They know which are the simplest to use. They know which ones are hip and cool. Find them, meet with them and form a plan for how to deploy the best

tools for communication and collaboration.

■n Experiment to determine business value. The business value of social tools can be nebulous and hard to pre-define. Be willing to try out the tools in a series of pilot programs and measure the results. If the tools work, the organization will use them and demand more. If the tools don’t work, end the pilot.

■n Don’t be discouraged if the use of social net-

working tools does not immediately work. At the core, communication and collaboration are cultural issues. If people are not used to communication and collaboration, tools alone will not resolve that issue. To help things along, find a small group of communication and collaboration advocates and put them in charge of evangelizing the use of the tools. Over time, adoption and business value will increase.

Right now is a great time to be an IT leader because technology is the language of business. It is time to embrace every flavor of tool—including social networking. —Niel Nickolaisen

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ABOUT THE

AUTHORS

HARVEY KOEPPEL is the president of Pictographics Inc. and a former CIO. Write to him at hrkoeppel@aol.com.

NIEL NICKOLAISEN is CTO at O.C. Tanner Co., a Salt Lake City-based human resources consulting company. Write to him at nnick@octanner.com.

CHRISTINE PARIZO is a freelance writer specializing in business and technology. Write to her at christine@christineparizo.com.

Enterprise Social Networking: Collaborate Seamlessly is a SearchCIO.com e-publication.

Rachel Lebeaux | Senior Managing Editor

Christina Torode | Editorial Director

Francesca Sales | Associate Editor

Harvey Koeppel, Niel Nickolaisen, Christine Parizo | Contributing Writers

Linda Tucci | Executive Editor

Linda Koury | Director of Online Design

Neva Maniscalco | Graphic Designer

FOR SALES INQUIRIES

Amalie Keerl | Director of Product Management akeerl@techtarget.com

TechTarget 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466

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© 2014 TechTarget Inc. No part of this publication may be transmitted or re-produced in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher. TechTarget reprints are available through The YGS Group.

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COVER ART: THINKSTOCK