1. "What's in it for me?" User Adoption & Employee
Engagement Strategies for Enterprise Social
Computing Projects(Making SharePoint Sexy)
Prepared for:
Ragan SharePoint Conference
October 2012
Jeff Willinger & Caleb Hampton
@jwillie
2. About Jeff
Director of Social Computing at Rightpoint.
Rightpoint is a Gold Certified and Managed Microsoft Partner
with a specialization in MOSS 2010, 2013, Collaboration,
Social Computing & Networking. SharePoint & mobile.
Regular speaker and evangelist on the value of Social
Networking, Social Media and Social Computing
Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn Expert.
I am buying YOU a beer or cocktail TODAY(and giving away
books!
Follow @jwillie and Tweet this:
“ Listening to @jwillie rant and rave about SharePoint,
social computing and employee engagement #RaganSHRPT”
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
3. LIKE Jeff
Director of Social Computing at Rightpoint.
Rightpoint is a Gold Certified and Managed Microsoft
Partner with a specialization in MOSS 2007, Collaboration
& Social Networking.
Regular speaker and evangelist on the value of Social
Networking, Social Media and Social Computing
Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn Expert.
I am buying YOU lunch TODAY!
Tweet this:
“ Listening to @jwillie rant and rave about SharePoint,
social computing and employee engagement #aliee ”
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
6. Session Objectives
Overview:
• Discuss why many enterprise social computing projects
miss the mark due to lack of employee engagement
and low end-user adoption. Show what is in the social
sphere and what you can do outside your 4 walls.
Key take-away:
• Provide a framework that drives employee
engagement & end-user adoption enabling
organizations to realize the full benefit of their
enterprise social computing return on investment.
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
7. Definition
Social Intranet (sō’shəl) • (ĭn’trə-nĕt’) An intranet
that utilizes social technologies to enhance the every
day activities and transactions necessary for
employees to learn, plan and do their jobs thereby
making them more engaged and productive.
Increases employee engagement and user adoption if
deployed properly(possibly SharePoint 2010).
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
8. Intranet Employee Engagement
Top 5 Best Practices
Employee
Recognition
Integrate
Social Computing
Deliver Targeted Content &
Enable Personalization
Provide Incorporate Rich Media
Rich Media (Photos/Videos)
Create an Engaging User Experience
Oct 2012 Employee Engagement and Intranets
9. Myths
Some of the Employee Engagement Myths
• Size matters
• I’m too busy
• It won’t pay off
• The business won’t care
• Should “corporate” or marketing own this?
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
10. Truths Part 1
Your old, standard intranet is one-way
communication. A social intranet is two-way
communication.
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
11. Truths Part 2
Key Learning’s for building engagement:
• Be clear on where you are different and that it’s the
right fit. You must be believable and relevant.
• Start somewhere and keep the message simple.
• Make it “personal” to create emotional
engagement with the brand.
• Provide “new News” to enhance your recruiting
and retention efforts.
• It starts with external activities. Awards are noticed
by the Team, Executives, Employees, Suppliers and
Community.
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
12. Portal & Collaboration
Pitfalls & Best Practices
1. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.
• Do: Think big, but start small.
2. Don’t overcomplicate the user interface.
• Do: Keep it simple (KISS).
3. Don’t assume user adoption will happen.
• Do: “If you build it, they will come” doesn’t necessarily
work. Ensure (1) business goals, (2) end-user goals and
(3) technology goals in completely in sync.
Oct 2012 Driving Employee Engagement
13. Portal & Collaboration
Pitfalls & Best Practices
4. Don’t underestimate the importance of
governance and alignment with your culture.
• Do: Put a proper governance plan in place day 1 and
align your solution with your culture.
5. Don’t “customize” when you can “configure”.
• Do: Leverage out-of-the-box features whenever
possible.
6. Don’t underestimate the breadth of SharePoint’s
capabilities.
• Do: Educate yourself on what is possible with the
platform
Oct 2012 Driving Employee Engagement
18. Our Experience
Not Going Excited
to Adopt Adopters
(33%) (33%)
On the Fence
(33%)
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
19. Our Goal
Not Going
to Adopt Critical
(33%) Mass:
Excited
Adopters
(66%)
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
20. Why Do Some Enterprise
Social Computing Projects
Miss The Mark?
21. Top 3 Reasons Why Some Enterprise
Social Computing Projects Miss The Mark
1. Stakeholders don’t start with “Why?”.
2. End-users don’t fully understand
“What’s in it for me?”
3. The user experience is not as “engaging” and
“intuitive” as mainstream social media tools.
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
22. A Recipe for Failure
Typical enterprise social computing project:
Requirements Design & Training &
Testing Pilot Launch
Definition Configuration Deployment
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
24. A Framework for Success
How?
What?
Why?
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
25. How?
A Framework for Success What?
Why?
Why? What? How?
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
26. A Framework for Success
Why are we doing this?
1. Accelerate innovation
2. Improve expertise discovery Why?
3. Enhance knowledge management
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
27. A Framework for Success
What’s in it for me?
1. Communicate how the solution
helps me personally achieve success. What?
2. Communicate usage best practices
through anecdotes and other methods.
3. Identifies the specific behavioral
barriers that will prevent users from
adopting the solution.
‒ Users don't want to be bothered with another system.
‒ Are users concerned about having contributions public and uncensored?
‒ Do end-users fully understand the benefits?
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
28. A Framework for Success
How do we make it effortless?
1. Less is more
2. Design an effective user experience How?
3. Enable intuitive features
How do we deploy?
• What is the ideal pilot?
• How do we educate and train end users?
• How do we organically manage our community?
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
29. About Caleb
Overall great guy, husband and father and he works
at New Balance…
Manages Digital applications and project teams
Program management role prior to New Balance,
managed Digital projects including intranets
Intranet, Associate Engagement, and SharePoint
advocate at New Balance
Also manages ecommerce platform, teams and
initiatives
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
30. The Journey at New Balance | NBLink
First launched around 2005; built on FatWire CMS
Consensus to rebuild in 2009, but with what technology?
• Selected SharePoint (2007) as Enterprise collaboration / CMS platform
• SharePoint was fit for several initiatives
• Committed on path of building rich interactive applications as part of this process
For “social” features, did build vs. buy assessment with tools such as
Newsgator.
Built custom site using Silverlight and SharePoint; launched in 2010
Moved to more out of the box approach with 2010 migration
Currently looking at next iteration
38. What worked / Didn’t work | NBLink
Some support challenges with custom site in 2007.
Underestimated importance of “look and feel” with move to 2010. But
out of the box approach has been maintenance-free.
Consistently hear that “it’s hard to find things”; intranet I/A is a
challenge, no right answer.
Have not seen significant use of engagement features. Need more
engaging content and more incentive to engage.
SharePoint platform overall has been extremely stable. CMS features are
good.
Justification to invest in intranet is always a challenge. Need executive
support; also need to be realistic with overall company priorities.
39. The Journey at New Balance | iNB
Major R&D initiative going back to 2008
Goal was collaboration and interaction within the global R&D team in the
context of the design process
• Content repository
• Project management tool
• Ideation
• Fun, social, place to hang out
Implemented as custom Silverlight application, using SharePoint (2007)
wherever possible
44. What worked / Didn’t work | iNB
Partnership between Business and IT on feature set and complexity
• Some bells and whistles increase support challenges; need to
compromise on scope
A lot of browser and Mac issues with Silverlight
A ton of engagement with Idea Palace; but fizzled when ideas went
nowhere
• Currently thinking about how to make Idea Palace an Enterprise tool
For a project-based application, important that all aspects and members
of project are in the application
For both projects, finding a good long-term partner was a win!
45. Employee Engagement Roadmap:
“Think BIG, Start Small”
Employee
Create Employee Learn, Employee
Engagement Prioritize Conduct
Engagement Measure, Engagement
Requirements Requirements Initial Pilot
Roadmap Grow Roadmap
Facilitation
Understand Prioritize Roadmap Pilot Rinse & Repeat
• Align business goals • Determine Value • Identify metrics • Choose market • Encourage recognition
• Facilitate focus groups • Determine Effort • What’s in it for me? • Choose use cases real-time.
• Surface requirements • Identify incentives • Monitor activity • Promote anecdotal successes
• Contests to promote participation
Oct 2012 Drive Employee Engagement
