Sales and marketing misfire at the company picnic. Will they ever be able to collaborate and stay on the same page? Enterprise social networking is about to take on its biggest challenge ever. (continued…)

Enterprise social networking is rapidly becoming a must-have in the 21^st century. Businesses like Yellow Pages Group are replacing traditional technology like SharePoint and using social technology to revamp the critical connection between sales and marketing. Discover how Yellow Pages Group is integrating enterprise social networking into their business processes to drive higher sales and increased revenue.

Join Angela Ashenden, Principal Analyst at MWD Advisors and Andre Boisvert, Chief Architect at Yellow Pages Group for our live interview-style webinar on how to Transform Sales and Marketing to Boost Revenue with Enterprise Social.

Why you should attend:

• Discover how Yellow Pages Group employees use enterprise social networking to boost collaboration across departments and drive revenue
• Hear their business objectives and the plan that was put in place
• Learn how private social networks naturally gather feedback, so the efforts of Marketing don’t go unnoticed

Register Now!

Andre Boisvert
Andre is the Chief Architect at Yellow Pages Group. YPG is a Montreal-based holding of leading digital advertising and marketing solutions companies. With offices coast to coast, Yellow Pages Group employes over 2,800 people.

Angela Ashenden
Angela is MWD’s Principal Analyst for Collaboration. With Experience in many areas around collaboration and information management, she has advised clients on technology and management issues relating to collaboration, enterprise content management, portals, workflow, enterprise search and e-learning. (continued…)

Organizational heads exist on all sides of the law. On the one hand you’ve got the c-level executive of a global corporation, and on the other, the gentleman like Al Capone, Frank Costello and yes, even the Hollywood glamorized Tony-Soprano types. Both manage a complex organization of individuals and build relationships with an “If I provide for you, you provide for me”-type foundation. Both are willing to take risks, maintain a level of coolness under pressure, and are concerned with results. And both wear suits and chomp on cigars, to play out the perfect archetype.

So who would benefit more from a private social network?

Both “bosses” need a way to communicate a collective purpose. At the same time, they need oversight into what people are doing—their struggles and accomplishments—so they can influence a new direction as needed. Private social networking provides the platform for leaders to share their thoughts and vision, as well as take a pulse on what’s going on within their organization. People share what they’re working on, collaborate on the latest tasks, and everyone is connected from their mobile device. So if a CEO needs to know what’s going with the latest corporate communications campaign, he or she can tap in. (continued…)

It may come as no surprise to you that the greater distance between employees, the less employees collaborate. What’s astonishing is that once there’s about 30 meters (160 feet) of distance in between employees, collaboration drops completely (according to a study by T.J. Allen, the author of Managing the Flow of Technology). Two people could be working in the same building for years, and still have no idea who the other person is or what they’re working on.

Organizations face the challenge of improving collaboration across employees, especially when they are remotely dispersed. This, as principal of Chess Media Group Jacob Morgan puts it, is exactly why enterprise social networking platforms are becoming so valuable to organizations.

It’s the people around you and on your team, who quickly bring you up to speed within an organization. But, when it comes to expanding outside of your nearby network and having more insight into what’s going on in your organization, your email system won’t do the trick because it’s limited to the conversations with people you already know. Enterprise social networking helps employees quickly figure out who’s whom within their organization, what employees are talking about, their ideas, and the projects they’re initiating. (continued…)

Modern business is predicated on collaboration, but most companies struggle when it comes to creating and managing the technologies, processes, and people that enable the effective exchange of information within a company. According to McKinsey, the disconnect is huge, with close to 80% of executives believing collaboration is critical to growth, but only 25% describe their organization as being effective at collaboration. It’s startling that so few executives are satisfied with their collaboration efforts given that what these executives want is remarkably simple – for employees to be able to collaborate on demand. Imagine if collaboration was as simple as making a phone call where anyone is able to pick up the phone, hear a dial tone, and know that there is a ubiquitous network capable of connecting them with people around the world.

How can companies achieve the promise of collaboration on demand? There are countless tips on improving employee collaboration, but here are three that should be considered the fundamental building blocks of internal collaboration.

First, companies should analyze pre-existing forms of collaboration, no matter how flawed, to learn how employees collaborate currently. Simply talking to employees about the technologies, processes, and people they currently depend upon for collaboration will expose a variety of networks, both formal and informal, that employees already use. (continued…)

Have you ever pondered how unified communications could positively impact your company? Maybe you have, and maybe you haven’t.  Think about how many times you have sent multiple e-mails or made multiple phone calls for days, sometimes weeks, on end without receiving a response.

Sometimes, that’s just the name of the game in the business world.

How could enterprise social media, which allows for nearly instantaneous communication, change that?  What might be some of the advantages of this type of communication?  Learn more about some of the benefits your company could experience unified communications.

Costs are reduced long-term.  Make no mistake about it – there will be an associated up-front investment in equipment, installation, and employee training.  However, over the course of time, improved communication reduces the need for traditional business communication methods – fax, video conferencing, phone service, and others.  You may need to invest in a more reliable data pipeline, but that will reduce your need for many fax and phone lines.

Your employees have improved access to company leadership.   Enterprise social networking breaks down the walls of your organizations so employees can hear the thoughts of their executives and in return executives can leverage the insights of their employees. (continued…)

When it comes to talking social business, Dion Hinchcliffe isn’t afraid to say it: “This is what executives want.This will change our industry. This will dramatically improve our results.”

Dion, the executive Vice President of Dachis Group, presented on the state of social business at the inaugural tibbr social event in Sydney, Australia. Co-author of the book Social Business by Design, Dion talked about how executives are starting to see significant bottom line results from enterprise social.

“There is consistent revenue and profit benefits for companies that are highly connected using social tool technologies,” Dion said, referring to a synthesis of data from McKinsey and Dachis Group. Business advantages include: 30% faster customer care processes, 20-30% increase in access to expertise, 30% increase in speed to knowledge, 10-20% reduction in travel and communication costs and more. See the graphic below.

Mobile access, app integration and community management strategies are critical factors for implementing a successful social business strategy. “Mobile first, that’s what I hear from CIOs everywhere,” Dion said. Smart mobility strategies have become a top priority for most Fortune 500 CIOs. In other words, if your business is planning to go social, mobile needs to come with it.”

“Community management is needed,” Dion added. (continued…)

Enterprise social is transforming the way we work, but don’t take my word for it. Matthew Ryan, CIO and Cofounder of Cordelta, and Dion Hinchcliffe, Executive Vice President of Strategy for the Dachis Group, had plenty of good points to make on the subject at the inaugural tibbr social event, in Sydney, Australia. In this two-part blog series, we’ll cover both of their presentations.

Matthew is quite passionate about the way enterprise social is evolving the culture and work practices at Cordelta. The fast growing professional services firm, founded in 2004, is ranked 1st in fairness and 11th overall in BRW’s latest “Best Place to Work” awards.

During Matthew’s presentation on enterprise social networking, he showed a “Decision Making – Effectiveness Curve,” and highlighted that a business was less likely to make a decision as the number of decision makers increased. In this type of situation, the traditional approach for decision making only hindered the process: trying to get everyone in the same room physically; or using email, which was not designed for rapid conversation between several people. Now, the solution for Cordelta is to post a poll on tibbr, their internal social network, which allows for a democratic vote and the ability to add comments and questions in real-time. (continued…)

“From my cold dead hands” is really what most of us would say if we had to part with our smartphones. Our mobile phones (especially the smart ones) have almost become virtual extensions of our body and an essential part of our day-to-day business and personal lives.

Of Facebook’s 845 million monthly active users, more than half of them accessed the social network through mobile apps. It’s similar in the enterprise as well. Over the course of the last couple of years I have had discussions with several mid to large sized enterprises (ranging from folks in IT to HR to KM teams) and its evident that mobile is a critical for social or any other enterprise wide initiative.

For any social platform to really succeed in enabling a more connected workforce – there are some elements that are absolutely critical from a mobile standpoint.

1. BYOD Enabler – Mobile enablement is definitely in the top 3 priorities for most enterprises. Mobile is quickly becoming the primary interface of access and interaction. The Social applications need to be platform agnostic, from the latest iPhone and Android to the 3-year-old BlackBerry.  All the key features of social application need to be available on the mobile platform for users across the globe to be able to connect and collaborate. (continued…)

It’s no secret social media tools that enhance enterprise collaboration are quickly becoming all the rage in the business world.  In fact, a recent report by Forrester suggests businesses will increase their spending on enterprise social media software at a rate of 61%, compounded annually.

Businesses should be excited because enterprise social software does enhance organizational productivity, and ultimately, the bottom line.  The challenge, however, lies in accurately measuring those results and then communicating them to management and upper-level executives.

At this point, however, there is not one standard method of measuring the effectiveness of enterprise collaboration tools. The results of a study performed by McKinsey, summarized here, provide some insights as to how you might make necessary measurements.

For organizations implementing Web 2.0 technologies, the following is true:

• 77% gain faster access to information
• 60% reduce their communication costs
• 52% gain enhanced access to internal experts
• 44% cut their travel costs
• 41% experience increased employee satisfaction

If you wanted to study access to information, for example, you would simply measure how much time it takes to locate information before and after implementation of your enterprise social network.  Tie this amount of time to the dollars spent on salaries of the respective employees using this time, and voila – you now have an accurate measure of the reduction in cost your social network brings. (continued…)