Presentation by Sandra Buehler as given on November 30th in Amsterdam for Social Connections IV, the IBM Connections user group event

1. Social Intranet for Small Businesses
Sandra Bühler, Belsoft AG
Amsterdam, November 30th, 2012

2. About me… Connections

3. Language Disclaimer (or it could be worse…)

4. IBM Connections = Major Enterprises?
Sure, the official success-stories about the adoption of IBM
Connections are big multinational companies, which are globally
distributed and acting all over the world, but...
… what about us? How could IBM Connections help us as a
small and local acting company?

5. Why did we implement a Social Intranet?

6. Our Objectives of Implementing Social Software
Improving internal communication
Simplify cooperation
Improving know-how transfer
Preserving and sharing of know-how

7. Improving the internal communication

8. Improving internal communication
How was the communication before the adoption of Social Software:
Top-Down
 Verbally
 By e-mail
 1:1
Bottom-Up
 Verbally
 1:1
Among Peers
 Fragmented in business units and projects

9. Improving internal communication (Top Down)

11. Improving internal communication (Bottom Up)

12. Improving internal communication (among peers)

13. Simplify cooperation

14. Simplify cooperation (Transparency)

15. Improving know-how transfer

16. Improving know-how transfer (How to’s)

17. Improving know-how transfer (or how to shorten discussions)

18. Preserving and sharing know-how

19. Preserving and sharing know-how

20. Preserving and sharing know-how

21. Procedure and conclusion

22. Implementation of our Social Intranet – Best Practices
 Establishing know-how communities (we are technicians) Pilot phase
- Appointing community-leaders, who are responsible for the content
 Establishing HR- and Management communities
********************************************************************************************
 Introduction and training of all employees Productive
 Official means of communication are the community blogs of the management since
and HR. It’s the duty of the employee to follow and to get the information from January
there) 2011
 Convince the employees -> using positive examples of the benefit when using
the social intranet (not only passively, but also actively)
 Management and community owners have to be role models
******************************************************************************************** Future?
 Attitude of sharing and playing an active part in the social intranet should be a
habit and might be required for a professional qualification

23. Conclusion of a new employee
«… I never thougth that you could shorten the period of
vocational adjustment just by having in place something
like know-how communities and you can access the
know-how of your peers at your finger tips.»
«… when I look up some technical information
in our Connections, I can be sure that the relevance
is much higher and I trust the source.»

24. Conclusion of the management after almost two years
Our Objectives of Implementing Social Software were all achieved
Improving the internal communication
Simplify cooperation
Improving know-how transfer
Preserving and sharing of know-how
There are still challenges
Critical mass (10% rule doesn’t work)
File Explorer in mind (where exactly is…)
Finding the time to contribute during packed days

25. My personal conclusion
«Our social intranet is a success story
… but language skills and communication skills are more
important than ever.»

26. Numbers don’t lie
67 communities
26 users logged in last month
171 activities in the system
2397 bookmarks
23 contributors
221 forum posts
62 wikis
428 wiki pages
25 active bloggers
366 comments
816 files
(2.5 GB)

27. Questions?