Collaboration and Social Media – Changing the Field of Communication

By Rebecca Goozee, Deputy Editor

Enterprise communications continue to evolve at a rapid pace, remaining critical for competitive differentiation – those who communicate more effectively are undoubtedly more successful. So what part are collaboration and social networking playing within the changing field of communications?

Web 2.0 tools focus on the creation and sharing of content

“While there is no magic in social media, the key difference is the scale on which you can reach people, potentially in their hundreds, thousands or even millions. You need to harness that for your benefit and that starts with a willingness to take it seriously.”
-Matthew Lees, VP of the Patricia Seybold Group

As the full impact of the credit crunch begins to affect the business and professional lives of millions of people around the world, we are forced to look at new and innovative ways to survive. Economic circumstances are now forcing people to connect with business contacts, partners and collaborators – along with potential employers, staff and customers – in new and innovative ways. Collaboration is expanding, unified communications (UC) are enabling speedier decisions and improving processes internally, and enterprise social networking is opening up new avenues for success externally. Enter the next generation of collaboration and communication: robust, interoperable, server-based tools, integrating mobile technology to provide anytime, anywhere access to critical information, increasing productivity and reducing costs.

Connectivity has become crucial to business success as people want and need access to information anywhere and anytime. As organizations look to lower expenses and increase efficiency, communications and collaboration have become vital elements for business success. It is imperative for companies to enhance their ability to locate people at the right time, through the appropriate communications medium.

Social media-challenging conventional business communication

Next generation communications

According to a recent IDC report, collaborative applications were in great demand in 2007, generating $6.3 billion in worldwide revenue. Mark Levitt, IDC’s Lead Strategist and Researcher for Collaborative Applications, believes that the main driver for growth in collaborative applications is due to workers continuing to find ways to be more productive. “Organizations recognize that providing real-time instant messaging and online meeting tools for a broader portion of the workforce is necessary for promoting cohesive teams and reducing travel costs,” says Levitt.

Businesses seeking to improve their connectivity are increasingly turning to UC and software-as-a-service (SaaS), which make tools easier to use. Switching between standalone tools wastes time and mental energy that today’s workers cannot afford. “UC provides a set of complementary tools that users can move between quickly and easily,” explains Levitt. “SaaS enables teams to start using a new application without having to go through the formal, often time-consuming process of involving IT staff.” Levitt also points out that SaaS enables IT departments to provide tools to a limited number of workers whose needs do not justify the long-term investment of on-premises infrastructure.

Companies are utilizing Web 2.0 tools and technologies in order to improve both internal collaboration between users, systems and departments, and external collaboration with suppliers, partners and customers. Levitt believes that these technologies have empowered users and teams to identify and customize the tools they need to get their work done. “Following the lesson that they learned with instant messaging, individuals now feel they can achieve without necessarily involving IT,” says Levitt. “With ease of use, connectivity and sharing treated as priorities, Web 2.0 tools remove barriers that can make it difficult for people, especially when separated by an organizational boundary, to work together toward a common objective, which may include developing a better product or strengthening the relationship between a customer and a supplier.”

UC and many other Web 2.0 tools focus on the activities of people creating and sharing content, rather than on creating and storing data that can be accessed after, proving that human interaction is key for innovation. Finding people with the right information and expertise, whether they are located inside or outside the organization, is viewed by a growing percentage of companies as the key to successfully navigating the marketplace. “By improving the chances of knowing what products and services customers want and how go-to market partners can help refine and deliver the goods to the customers,” says Levitt.

Collaboration and social media bring the world to your finger-tips

Social networking

As collaboration technologies improve, companies are becoming increasingly efficient internally, but how are they communicating externally? The trend seems to be towards enterprise social networking and according to Gartner, social software is hot right now, and is only going to get more so, particularly in the face of a down economy.

Jeffrey Mann, Vice President of Research for Gartner’s Collaboration and Social Software Group, believes that company and brand awareness, as well as customer engagement and management is needed even more so in a down economy. As advertising and marketing budgets are being slashed, many businesses are forced to get creative through their sales and marketing efforts. Social media is being embraced as a new network to connect with consumers, and many companies are set to benefit from the positive affects of social media.      

There are a number of benefits to becoming more consumer focused. Firstly, by engaging and interacting with your customer it allows for a clear line of sight and a deep understanding of what your customer needs and wants. This is beneficial because it means you can adapt your products as needs change and this typically translates to higher customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Secondly, brands benefit because they are engaging with the community, whether mining conversations and looking to gain customer insight or actively soliciting direct input through polls, surveys or one-to-one questions.

Matthew Lees, Vice President of the Patricia Seybold Group, believes that engaging with consumers is key in figuring out how they want to do business and how you can make it easier to do so. “Customers want to purchase your products and make smart choices. This isn’t about the products or the services themselves, it’s a way of doing business, and we think that there’s a lot of valuable information out there that organizations should tune in to, listen and act upon.”

Beyond a customer focus, social media is important in providing a support network for consumers. Lees believes that as organizations become more customer-centric, social networks provide an additional support channel and allow for an engagement with the community. “There are benefits to the brand and image by being seen as more customer-friendly, open and transparent,” says Levitt.

While companies are understandably wary about a high level of openness and concerned about possible ramifications starting up on the internet, Levitt explains that although concerns are justified, negligence occurs with much less frequency than people would expect to happen. “It’s a justifiable concern but customers are already having conversations with friends or colleagues, so if there are problems or issues then people are already aware of them,” says Lees. Being aware of these conversations can actually be an upside, you may be able to identify potential problems ahead of time as opposed to being in the dark about them.

There’s clearly much more to enterprise social networking than simply instigating a forum, writing a blog and inviting comments and feedback on the basis of that, so what factors do firms need to consider in order to truly harness the potential of these types of media and interactions? Lees believes that the first crucial step is recognizing social media as bigger picture way of doing business, rather than a quick fix gimmick. “While there is no magic in social media, the key difference is the scale on which you can reach people, potentially in their hundreds, thousands or even millions,” claims Lees. “You need to harness that for your benefit and that starts with a willingness to take it seriously.”

By making a commitment to social media, it’s crucial to understand that if you want customers to be open with you, you need to be open with them. Earlier this year Starbucks launched My Starbucks Idea, a website that allows customers to make suggestions, discuss and vote on them. But while Lees highlights the importance of listening and participating, he maintains that it is vital to act on what you hear from your customers. “If you don’t do anything with the submitted ideas, and you are only doing it to seem like you’re interested, then you will turn people off long-term,” says Lees. “Taking action on what you’re observing from the community is absolutely crucial.”

One of the advantages of leveraging the scale of an open community, is not just in generating ideas but also to have the community rank those ideas and help you prioritize them. It is possible to reduce a lot of workload and not only hear the ideas but understand the most important issues from the point of the consumer. Lees is keen to highlight that as well as ideas, some communities allow you to upload software code, story ideas or photographs.

Future potential

So, what does the future hold for social media? Well, we will certainly see increased adoption of social media as tools, both internally and externally focused, says Lees. “What’s interesting is the overlap we are seeing and expect to see more of between the internal and external.” It is certainly a positive sign that although these tools are being built to support internal collaboration and increased productivity primarily, they also have components to allow external users to be able to communicate, collaborate and access information as required. “Anything that makes it easier to engage and connect with customers is a good thing from our perspective,” says Lees.

Lees also believes that much increased adoption is based on the younger generation and will continue to be. “Companies are hiring the best and the brightest, graduating from college, using wireless technologies, and when they start work they get a slower computer and have limited access. These are the people pushing for more openness and also have an increased expectation that you will help connect them with other people like them,” he explains. “And if you don’t help them to connect with people, through social media tools, ratings and reviews then they will go to someone who can do that.”

Extra info

Enterprise social networks
Businesses should consider the following guidelines when auditing and analyzing their own networks:
1. Do not separate ‘social’ networking from ‘professional’ networking. Attempts to control employees’ use of social networking software in the office may end up damaging the organization in the long run by depleting its network capital
2. There should be value placed on networks with people outside the firm. Too often, it is only senior staff who are encouraged to build relationships with people outside the organization. The power of horizontal networks across organizational boundaries is clear, and growing
3. Keep in touch with employees that have left the organization. The temptation during a difficult economic climate is to hunker down; but this risks cutting off flows of network capital. Companies should consider how to keep former employees in the network
4. Do not police networks but consider how they operate and what could be improved. This should be a first step towards collective conversations about the ‘rules of the game’ when it comes to operating within networks
[Source: Orange]

Achieving business goals
Social media technologies such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, video, social networks and online communities are increasing being leveraged by companies to:

• Build brand visibility and equity
• Gain insight into customers
• Promote products and services
• Influence communities
• Increase website traffic and leads
• Drive product innovation

[Source: WebGuild]

Enhancing productivity
Unified communication and collaboration solutions enable more efficient collaboration with employees, suppliers, customers and business partners. By enabling communications infrastructure, mobile devices, desktop and applications to work together, users can communicate with anyone at any time. The benefits of a unified communication and collaboration solution include:

• Improved communications: such as instant messaging and email
• Seamless user experience: with converged voice, data and video services
• Productivity boost: more efficient message management mean mobile workers can save almost an hour a day
• Cost reduction: voice and web conferencing minimize travel costs