This was a presentation from Bethany Kinsella of Best Buy at the HR Executive Forum in the Twin Cities on Feb. 5, 2009. I volunteered to post all of the presentations so those in attendance at the forum could review.

1. Best Buy’s Web 2.0 Journey
Bethany Kinsella
Director, Connected Digital Solutions
Best Buy
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2. Best Buy, Inc.
• Global Family of Brands
• Industry leader with
more than 40 years of
history
• 1,000+ Best Buy store
infrastructure
• 165,000 energized
employees
• Online presence with
Bestbuy.com site that
has 500 million unique
visitors a year

3. The Journey Begins….Blue Shirt Nation
Employees can collaborate, share
information and let people be
social – to connect to others based
on common interests.

4. Best Buy WIKI
Employees can share what they
know, edit information and search
for knowledge.

5. The Loop Marketplace
Budget owners
Ideas can be
can finance a
“Featured” or
portion or all of the
easily
funds required to
searched
execute the idea
through both
hard & soft
tagging
Employees can offer to help,
recommend or contribute/comment
on other employee’s ideas

6. Watercooler Discussion Forums
Employees can discuss
work related topics,
create subgroups and
subscribe to discussions

7. Tag Trade: Best Buy’s Prediction Market
Employees can help the
company make better
decisions by
participating in the
prediction market

8. BSN Mix
Employees can cut
through the traditional
communication
mechanisms, posting a
note, asking a question,
seeking a rapid
response.

9. GIFTAG: www.giftag.com
BSN Mix
Allows people to pick
items from any website,
add it to a list and share
with family and friends.

10. Spy: spy.appspot.com
Allows people to ‘listen’
in on social media
conversation through
keyword

11. Connect: www.bestbuyinc.com/connect
Allows people to access
to employee blogs and
tweets [Twitter]

12. Lessons Learned
It’s not about the ‘tool’; the magic is in the culture it

enables
Patience (and making the time to engage)

Openness, Honesty, Trust

Learning & Iteration


13. Key Take-Aways
We’re Better Together: Social forums empower people and enable them to

collaborate, listen, solve problems and find opportunities. This helps us grow
and keeps us strong.
We’re Trying A lot of Things: Some will work, some won’t and everything

will constantly evolve. We’re not afraid to take risks, try things and even fail –
as long as we learn.
We Believe in our People: People make up this company, and we’re not

afraid to show (and listen to) that humanity.
We Sell the Stuff that Makes this Happen. We have the opportunity to help

our customers experience what technology can do for them.

14. Best Buy’s Web 2.0 Journey
Bethany Kinsella
Director, Connected Digital Solutions
Best Buy
bethany.kinsella@bestbuy.com
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