I spent the last week in Florida at our user conference (Open Text Content World) where the common thread of many conversations and presentations revolved around Social Media in the Enterprise.
I had the pleasure of presenting two sessions; one about Collaboration and Community Management in the Enterprise and the other on making use of real time collaboration tools in the Enterprise. A key take away from both of my sessions was that technology is meant to be the enabler and not the solution. My goal was to help demonstrate that making use of social media tools such as blogs, wikis, ratings, etc..can help foster a more collaborative and open environment in the workplace and can in turn help accelerate employee engagement and productivity. Social Media introduces new ways to engage customers, employees and partners that requires transparency & authenticity.
There was a general consensus with the attendees in my sessions that it was not a question of whether or not they saw the need to introduce more “social” tools to their users to allow them to contribute and build out conversations around content and business processes - the struggle existed in the ability to shift the mindset of users. Many people in the room were more concerned about how they were going to be able to adapt to the use of social media. They understood that this was more than just introducing new tool sets; it represented a culture shift - a shift that needs to happen to make the use of these social tools take on meaning and relevancy in their organizations.
Just for fun: In case you are wondering to what extent social media tools are being used in the world today I invite you to spend some time watching the below graphic of Gary Hayes' Social Media Counts. http://www.personalizemedia.com/garys-social-media-count/
I had the pleasure of presenting two sessions; one about Collaboration and Community Management in the Enterprise and the other on making use of real time collaboration tools in the Enterprise. A key take away from both of my sessions was that technology is meant to be the enabler and not the solution. My goal was to help demonstrate that making use of social media tools such as blogs, wikis, ratings, etc..can help foster a more collaborative and open environment in the workplace and can in turn help accelerate employee engagement and productivity. Social Media introduces new ways to engage customers, employees and partners that requires transparency & authenticity.
There was a general consensus with the attendees in my sessions that it was not a question of whether or not they saw the need to introduce more “social” tools to their users to allow them to contribute and build out conversations around content and business processes - the struggle existed in the ability to shift the mindset of users. Many people in the room were more concerned about how they were going to be able to adapt to the use of social media. They understood that this was more than just introducing new tool sets; it represented a culture shift - a shift that needs to happen to make the use of these social tools take on meaning and relevancy in their organizations.
Just for fun: In case you are wondering to what extent social media tools are being used in the world today I invite you to spend some time watching the below graphic of Gary Hayes' Social Media Counts. http://www.personalizemedia.com/garys-social-media-count/
I found it quite fascinating to watch these numbers grow. Enjoy!
