Internal Social Networks are starting to appear inside some organizations. Early adopters are finding positive business results by helping employees connect through “internal Facebooks.” By effectively harnessing these new networks, organizations are seeing positive impacts on internal brand building, as well as employee engagement, satisfaction and motivation — which leads to higher levels of productivity, revenue, and profit.
But the world of the internal social network is the opposite of command & control. That said, reasonable guidelines, a group of informal influencers, and a posse of community managers who help keep the dialog lively and the network on track.
It’s clear that no matter where your company is on the social media ladder, social networks and Web 2.0 skills are becoming a part of today’s work landscape. All businesses need to be aware of how to deploy networks for higher ROI, collaboration, innovation and customer service.
Join the Communitelligence Webinar, Building Employee Branding And Engagement With Internal Social Networks on March 17. You’ll come away with a much clearer idea of what works and what doesn’t in this brave new world of internal social networks from companies that are already figuring out the path to success. The webinar is led by three experienced experts:
- Lee Aase, Manager, Syndication and Social Media,Mayo Clinic
- Polly Pearson, VP Employment Brand and Strategy Engagement, EMC Corporation
- Paul Pedrazzi, Vice President, Product Strategy, Oracle
To help attendees get immersed in the subject, Paul Pedrazzi provided a brief overview of Oracle’s journey to social networking. He is also quick to say:
“There isn’t a magic bullet. It depends on the organization. Some do it for engagement and retention (Best Buy). Others do it for knowlegde sharing (Boeing). I think the best reason is the one that matches what matters to your business.”
To give a flavor of what will be discussed in this webinar, Jake Kuramoto of Oracle AppsLab has written a brief history of Oracle’s Connect. Since this is an exerpt, you may want to go here for the complete story, including a description of Connect’s Third Version.
Oracle’s Connect began in July 2007 as the IdeaFactory. We were collecting ideas from teams in Applications Strategy, and none of the usual ways (email, spreadsheets, wiki) worked for a team whose sole purpose was to (ahem) innovate.You can see the legacy of the original IdeaFactory in Connect today by paging through Ideas.
Here’s a taste of what it looked like:
Connect 1.0
Ideas were great and pretty successful, but we’d always planned to add social networking into the mix. Aria has always been the corporate directory, and we love it. We wanted to add a dash of social though, so in August 2007, Rich debuted Connect, which was IdeaFactory plus social networking and some other nice features.Traffic went through the roof. We quickly realized there was strong demand for networking inside the firewall, and with Connect 1.0, we were off and running.
Here’s what the first version of Connect looked like.
That 1.0 version underwent several UI makeovers. The next version added the short-lived Connect logo and removed the AppsLab branding and centralized the navigation a bit, teasing features to come.
The last 1.0 UI went from gray to white with a more Oracle standard logo and look/feel. I think Connect 1.0 had this UI for the longest amount of time. People were really accustomed to it.
Connect 2.0
After a long break to build and start up Oracle Mix, we turned our attention back to Connect, armed with even more ideas that had sprouted from Mix. Connect 2.0 went live in June 2008, adding SSO integration and a fully revamped architecture and infrastructure.
The big new feature in 2.0 was Groups, which we had built into Mix first. Now people could collaborate in ad hoc ways for work or personal interest.
The blue was a shock to many, and we got more than one negative comment about it (as compared to the white/red).
So, that’s the brief UI history of Connect over its 18-month existence. We’re back to the white in Connect 3.0, and I think we’ll stay with a clean look in the future. We’re already kicking around mockups of the 4.0 version, which is taking shape now.
