Driving Change: Selling SharePoint and Social Media Inside the Enterprise
Businesses and established organizations are vastly different environments than the Web 2.0 social networking-centric universe. Where Web 2.0 is all about sharing information and engaging in two-way conversations, the enterprise concerns itself, in part, with individuals who are guarded with information and an organizational structure that disseminates information in top-down fashion. From my experience of evangelizing the benefits of social media at a mid-sized civil engineering company, I have learned many lessons on how the enterprise regards and judges social media.
This is a guest post written by Jason Harris, a technology writer and SharePoint administrator.
The company I work for consists of roughly 950 employees spread across 23 offices up and down the west coast of the United States and some points eastward. How do I drive SharePoint and the concept of social media in a company in which most of my clientele consists of middle-aged civil engineers, most of whom don't see any benefit to making their work more social?
Problem: Individuals are Unaware of the Basics of Social Media
In the enterprise, many employees think blogs are merely websites on which people talk about their cat or their latest meal. Many don't know the differences between and advantages of such tools as message boards, blogs, and wikis. They have heard of these terms in passing, but the demands of their day-to-day jobs have prevented them from recognizing the distinct benefits of each tool.
Solution: It is useless to advocate for social media tools in a vacuum. Unless you're describing a solution to a practical problem, busy workers will not respond to buzzwords like "wiki," "blog," and "community." Your client usually has about a 30-second attention span in which you can sell a social media tool.
An aide in my arsenal has been the excellent videos by Lee Lefever at Common Craft. Lee visually explains social media concepts "In Plain English." Common Craft videos quickly explain complex and sometimes unfamiliar technologies in a few minutes, sans the buzzwords, hype, and sensationalism.
Problem: Cynical Clients Who Don't Want to Share Information
Unfortunately, some potential SharePoint users balk at the technology because they have no desire to share their knowledge for the benefit of the organization. These individuals tend to equate their knowledge with job security; therefore, they feel nervous about sharing out of fear that they wouldn't be needed any more.
Solution: As Guy Kawasaki says, "Look for agnostics, ignore atheists." If you sense your potential client has no interest in sharing information or contributing to an online community (in this case, powered by SharePoint), move on to other parties who would be interested in building a knowledge base and community.
Often, when people thumb their noses at the concept of a SharePoint website housing a body of knowledge, the time comes when they turn to that website or community for a piece of information to complete a task or carry out a project. As a result, they'll see the value of the online community and will be more inclined to contribute their knowledge to it.
Problem: Knowing Where to Start
Information technology managers and business folk have heard stories about the benefits of social media use in the enterprise but are unsure where to start.
Solution: Analyze your particular circumstances. Technology alone won't fix or alleviate a business problem. Merely throwing up a wiki and publicizing it doesn't guarantee its success. Instead, use collaborative technologies such as SharePoint to solve the problem.
For example, some companies have tedious workflows to address routine functions, such as requesting time off and filling out time cards. SharePoint has built-in features that help complete these functions quickly and easily. Take time-off requests, for example: Microsoft has a specific site template for this very purpose (which is free).
The point here is to take collaborative technology and apply it to processes that are routine and can be easily completed. This low-hanging fruit shows users the benefit of embracing a new way of doing things. At this point, when their minds are spinning at the possibilities, you can suggest other areas in which to apply SharePoint and other collaborative technologies.
Social media, collaboration, and tools such as SharePoint deliver many benefits to work groups and teams of all sizes. There are many challenges to overcome, many of them either mental or political, but the rewards definitely outweigh the hurdles. With care, nurturing, and proper execution, your work group or enterprise will enjoy the numerous benefits social media have to offer.
This guest post was written by Jason Harris, a technology writer and SharePoint administrator. To follow him, read his blog.
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Comments
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Jason, I think you got some of the theory right, but the practical implementation totally wrong.
"Unless you're describing a solution to a practical problem, busy workers will not respond to buzzwords like "wiki," "blog," and "community." Your client usually has about a 30-second attention span in which you can sell a social media tool."
Correct, you need to make the solution relevant to the people. It needs to be tied into their daily workflow. They don't care if the solution is a wiki, blog, social bookmarking or what have you. And yet you are saying, that you have 30s to sell a tool! Wrong! You are not selling a tool. You are trying to help people work in a smarter and more efficient way.
"Analyze your particular circumstances. Technology alone won't fix or alleviate a business problem. Merely throwing up a wiki and publicizing it doesn't guarantee its success. Instead, use collaborative technologies such as SharePoint to solve the problem."
That's a very similar notion to what you said before. Technology won't fix the problem. A wiki does not necessarily fix the problem (and I agree, you first need to know what the problem actually is), but Sharepoint does? Why? Because it costs millions of dollars or because it says MS or because it fits your IT strategy? Heck, Sharepoint built connectors to Enterprise wikis like Socialtext and Confluence because they realized that their patched wiki functionality could simply not do the job and help people to collaborate. Why is MS partnering with Newsgator to deliver social capabilities? MS has missed the train and they are desperately trying to catch up, because their customers are demanding more flexible, light-weight and easy-to-use tools.
I think were you are going totally wrong is when you write about 'requesting time off and filling out time cards'. Where is the social aspect to that? That's a work process...standard, formal, but not social. Yes, Sharepoint is good at that because it handles standard and formal workflows very well. However, it still falls very short when it comes to supporting informal conversations, collaboration, connecting people. And that's what the social web is about.
Jason,
Working for a large organization myself, I have become very interested in this topic. Nice overview.
My personal experience has been that most people don't care what tool they are using, just as long as its easy, or easier then the way they had to do it before if that makes sense. And that most people don't want to change the way that they're doing things currently, even if its obviously easier, because currently = comfortable and change = scary.
I agree that analyzing the need should provide insight into what tools can/should be used. Most people's answer to everything right now is E-mail, but I'm stuck trying to wrap my head around how enterprise feeds, subscriptions, and readers can unlock a more efficient future.
Time will tell.
-chris
Ten years of awesome technological progress have proved beyond reasonable doubt that technology and tools are a peripheral issue : knowledge management is about the people and their attitudes; it is about cooperation. This was the introduction of my graduation paper ten years ago, with the prisoner's dilemma illustrating cooperation issues - and it is today still as valid as ever.
We have found ways to take advantage of social media and collaboration tools in support of our processes. But our customers are almost always very different from us. As in any information systems project, analyzing and interpreting the user's patterns to turn them into coherent requirements that will fulfill the user's needs is an essential step. Finding the right mix of tools, organizations and processes will follow easily once the need is understood.
But even if you have the organizational dynamics and process engineering all laid out clearly, don't miss the human grain of sand that may force the whole machinery to a standstill
Hi Jason,
This is an interesting post however, no one has pointed to the real problem here; The use of MOSS (SharePoint) As an early adopter of Share Point back in the 90's when it was just a file sharing portal only, I knew that this has a potential. That said, many years later, MSFT still does not get it and even with the temples, MOSS is useless. Case in pint, MSFT themselves have asked my company Blogtronix a number of times to partner with us, since their blogging and social networking tools suck. At the moment they have partner with more than a dozen companies to provide more "robust" add-ons for their clients. So, what does this mean, MOSS does not have the technology to be very social and they want others to fill the gap. Many MOSS admins don't know or don't care to deal with add ons on top of the very heavy MOSS anyways. The point is that MOSS is not social and MSFT does not get it. MSFT are not social, how can they build a social platform themselves?! They even lost their best people who could have fix it, but now are working for other social media companies themselves where things could get done. Many of my clients have talked to MSFT and have asked for solutions for social media and in the end they found out that MOSS is not the answer for social media solutions at all. We have a number of very large clients who have chosen to use Blogtronix and not MOSS simple because they can't do what they need it for. They can't change the look and feel easy to match their corporate intranet or web sites. The system is made by developers for IT people and was not designed for social media. As I told MSFT some time a go MOSS for me is like a GM minivan that comes in different colors, with spare parts, and can take you from point A to point B, but that’s all folks. If you want to get the extra, forget it, you need to upgrade and change your technology to true social media platform. I am working at the moment with a large North American company, which wants to replace their entire MOSS with our platform, why? They hate everything about MOSS. It's too bad (not for us), MSFT had the chance to change things, but they did not.
So, it's not a mystery to me why the above MOSS admin had a hard time convincing his stuff to use MOSS. "For example, some companies have tedious workflows to address routine functions, such as requesting time off and filling out time cards. SharePoint has built-in features that help complete these functions quickly and easily.)"
Have any of you ever used the MOSS work flow engine? Wow. This thing is so bad that has given my team and me headaches over the years many times.
Good luck guys with your change Mrs. MOSS admin, you would need it.
Vassil
Sorry guys. I have a few grammar errors here. I should have proved read my post first. This topic gets me going every time. I need my coffee before blogging.
Interesting! I helped roll out Sharepoint to a company of 14,000 back when you had to have CAML developers (read hackers) to make anything useful out of it. It's come a long way now and I'm still a big fan as it's so easy to get value from it within an enterprise. From replacing the intranet to client extranets to running an internal social network or just a collaborative filestore it's great. Of course you can still hack it and make it do some very cool stuff too!
Sharepoint = Vendor Lock In
The smart users avoid vendor lock-in by using a product such as Alfresco that doesn't wrap proprietary layers around your content making it difficult to migrate to another product in the future.
Jason,
Did you look at the requirements first, and work out the best fit?
Your description sounds like trying to force a specific technology into place where it doesn't want to fit. What is the most pressing issue that these people have? The presence of SharePoint in the question is imposing it as a solution and entirely misses the points that you subsequently and elegantly make.
I recall an additional bit of theory from Beeline Labs: pilot something manageable with measurable results that is "big enough to move the needle". I recommend their report http://www.beelinelabs.com/ which makes it very clear that it has nothing to do with the technology... your question is kind of self defeating.
There may be times when Sharepoint is the best technology - we are an MS Gold Partner and implemented the UKs first fully accessible government website in MOSS as far as we know - yet we still wouldn't impose it as a solution in the question. For most projects it is not the answer (as with any technology that has a specific purpose - it fits when it fits)
@Christoph
Thanks for the comment! I agree with the part of your comment regarding how Microsoft has 'missed the train' with certain regards to their social computing efforts. And with regard to time card and vacation requests, I understand there isn't a social aspect to this function. However, in my experience, once a manager or stakeholder sees how SharePoint can automate processes such as these, then the door is open to suggest other more "social" SharePoint tools such as discussion board, wikis, and a blog, if these tools are relevant to his/her needs.
@Vassil:
I find MOSS to be an adequate tool in some situations and completely wrong with others. MOSS 2007 came a long way from the previous version, but MOSS definitely isn't the holy grail for enterprise social computing.
@Frank: Yes you are locked in when you pour content and workflows into SharePoint. This is true with many enterprise computing technologies as well. There are RSS Feeds inside SharePoint so hopefully third-party and competing vendors could utilize RSS to pull content out of SharePoint into other solutions in the future.
@Brett
Thanks a lot for your comment Brett.
Of course I evaluate the need before suggesting any solution. Case in point: a customer came to me wanting a CMS to handle an externally facing Web site with a particular look and feel and functionality. After evaluating this person's needs, SharePoint wasn't a good fit at all - But DotNetNuke was. They are happy with their DNN powered website and the flexibility offers them!
This is a huge topic, and this discussion is just scratching the surface. The thing that is alluded to several times but not addresses directly is the behavior and attitudes of the users. The technology (MOSS or other) becomes irrelevant if the organizational culture and the tool-set are not aligned. More work needs to be done on making what you have, work better by focusing on solving business problems,not just throwing more money at new/different/"better" technology.
It all comes down to how people in an organization are connecting, and could that connection be optimized by understanding the tools, behavior, processes and objectives at play within that connection. We need to spend time optimizing where the best ROI exists and stop looking only within our own silos of expertise.