Give up? It’s silos.
Frankly, if you deploy an enterprise social platform within a silo, it’s going to stay within that silo. And while it’s okay to have a phased rollout—starting with small groups and departments—it’s important to look at the big picture too.
What’s the purpose of using an enterprise social network? How will your entire business benefit from deploying an ESN in the long run?
Look at it this way:
When you post a message to your company’s social platform, you potentially leverage the brilliance of your entire company. You access their feedback, their knowledge, and perhaps the one ingenious idea that could remake your business.
But how do you get there? How do you create a network where people want to get involved and contribute their thoughts and insights?
By getting employees to understand the value of the network from the beginning.
Recently our internal tibbr community strategists presented the 50 most viable customer use-cases. We then narrowed it down to some of the most important ones.
Here they are: sharing knowledge, onboarding new employees, locating experts, increasing innovation, collaborating on a project, handling exceptions (This blog post,6 Questions to Ask Before You Buy-In to Enterprise Social, provides more details about each one).
The point is, these are all company-wide use-cases that solve company-wide problems. And employees can immediately grasp their value. As soon as a new employee joins the network they can instantly see who’s whom (experts), what’s where (knowledge), and who’s talking about what (collaboration). From that, they’ll get a better idea of company priorities and approaches with almost no training or learning curve. Then they can eventually start to contribute their own ideas and insights (innovation) to the network.
Plus, these company-wide use-cases have an unintentional side effect: breaking down silos. That’s right. ESNs help break down corporate silos. Employees start communicating across functions, with less hierarchy and more collaboration. They start exchanging more information with other employees and business groups so everyone has a clear understanding of what their business is trying to achieve.
Now, you’ve probably tired of hearing the word silo, so here’s a blog post full of cartoons making fun of ‘em to cheer you up.
