How Big Companies Use Social Media

Hilary WeberKaiser Permanente

San Francisco | June 23, 2009

“Harvesting the Low-Hanging Fruit ofInternal Social Media Channels”

Harvesting the Low-Hanging Fruit of Internal Social Media Channels June 2009

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Why and How Are Companies Using Internal Networks?

Nissan: NSquare   Increase effectiveness of communication and collaboration   Avoid bureaucracy   Create new partnerships and cross-functional alliances

Best Buy: Blue Shirt Nation   Reduce turnover   Increase employee engagement & satisfaction

General Electric: SupportCentral   “The Gold Standard”: Connect 400,000 users in 6000 global

locations, using 20 languages (25 million visits per DAY) http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/all/ge-nails-the-internal-social-network/?cs=11657

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Overview: Kaiser Permanente

•  Largest integrated health care provider in U.S., with largest active electronic medical record system on the planet (out of 8.6 million members, over 3 million have active access)

•  160,000 employees plus 14,000 physicians across •  9 states spanning both coasts and Hawaii •  35 hospitals and 431 medical office buildings

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Opportunity: Make Connections and Increase Collaboration

  Departments and regions work independently   Subject-matter experts are geographically

dispersed   Travel is becoming more limited   Technology and innovation is “in our DNA”   Motivated to gain work efficiencies via better

connections   Hope to leverage Web 2.0 internally to help inform

what we do externally

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Social Networking and Collaboration Tools @ Kaiser Permanente

•  Used heavily externally to support primarily PR efforts (youtube, Twitter, Facebook, etc)

•  Internally, social media and collaboration tools are a key component of our broader employee portal strategy

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Social Networking and Collaboration Tools @ Kaiser Permanente

Branded to integrate within Employee Portal User friendly & simple tools (Jive software)

  Blog   Discussions   Polls   Wikis   Polling   Profile

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Social Networking and Collaboration Tools @ Kaiser Permanente

  Create communities for: short or long-term projects, newsletters, shared interest, or community of practice

  Colleagues can work collaboratively across departments, regions, and time zones.

  Connect with those of similar interests or look for an inspiration or a helping hand by searching for colleagues by expertise, biography, past/current KP projects, and personal interests.

8 Social Networking and Collaboration Tools @ Kaiser Permanente

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Challenges

•  Web 2.0 is a second language for us. •  How do you transfer the organic nature of

social media to a regulated corporate structure?

•  These tools makes Legal and Compliance departments very nervous!

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A Case Example

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Where We Started: Grassroots Networking

Like everyone else, we cut our teeth on email; then individual blogs started proliferating in a viral, organic fashion.

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Opportunity from Digital Marketing’s POV

As Director of Internet Marketing Services (part of Brand Marketing), my team functions as a consultative internal digital marketing agency and “R&D” shop (producing 800-1000 projects/ campaigns per year)

I often hear: “We don’t know what you’re working on” – even within my own team – so I was motivated to find a way to share our plans, programs and projects more effectively

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Opportunity from Digital Marketing’s POV

To share our programs and projects more effectively:   I used to write marketing plans (no one ever

read them)   Email became an unwieldy, abused channel

for communication (plus it’s hard to sort by importance, relevance or content)

  I decided to get “my own house in order first” for my own team’s connectivity and sharing, so we set up a WIKI

  I think of the Wiki as the equivalent of the “Family Tool Shed” (where we keep our Stuff)

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Wikis for Teams

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Case Study: Need a New Tool on the Intranet…

But my team has no developers, page designers or techies…

•  We built a quick “mock-up” in our Wiki •  Content is real •  Has links leading the user 6-7 pages deep •  Result? The Intranet team has direct access, and knows exactly what we want without requirements meetings, wireframes, etc. •  Win-Win

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The Wiki Can Shape & Centralize the Team’s Processes

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Each Subteam Can Have Its Own “Micro-site”

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Opportunity for Increased “Visibility” with Others

The Wiki is a great resource for a team, but not so good for sharing & collaborating outside of the team…

My team is a part of the National Marketing & Internet Services department, with over 500 employees

Then add many additional colleagues, e.g. Web Development partners in IT, internal “clients” in numerous departments and regions, etc. – this takes our “internal target market” into the 1000s, so…   How can we find subject matter experts – the right

contacts?   How can we connect and stay connected to our

colleagues?

19 Goal: Innovative Collaboration Across the Organization

Find

Connect

Organize

Collaborate

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Introducing KP Ideabook: The “Town Square”

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FIND People, Groups and Information

“Tags” on Profiles Allow Us to Find Who/What We’re Looking For

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CONNECT with Key Contacts and Groups

Step One: Click to Connect

Step Two: Connection Made

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ORGANIZE the Content You Need to Access

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COLLABORATE with Others Instantly

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Added Benefits of Internal Networking

Interactive E-Work Environment: •  Custom Group Set-up (either Open or Private discussions

and invitations) •  Blogs for individuals and groups •  Document Sharing •  Polls – ask groups you belong to or everyone in the

network

Consolidation of your work, teams, partners, new ideas and resources in one place

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My Team Can Share Updates Anytime

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Promoting the Channel

Sample Instructions: Ideabook.kp.org is live now and ready to try out… Step 1: Go to ideabook.kp.org and register (it’s easy!) Step 2: Enter your “bio” information and your photo so people will recognize you

in a meeting or in the hall (no dog or kid photos, please!) Step 3: Do a search using tags (keywords, e.g. email marketing or Web 2.0) to find

the people/teams/skill sets you seek Step 4: Start “friending” people to collaborate with them

You can set up a Group with people you would normally share meetings, information, decisions with – you can start to see time savings and meeting reduction right away

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Tactical Takeaways

Searchable TAGS (keywords) connected to people’s Profiles – this is the “Crown Jewel” of Findability

Recommendations: •  Come up with 20-25 tags for your team/group, publish them and

use them consistently •  Train others (e.g. your team) to use the tags on their own profile

and in their posts •  General searching on the networking tool takes zero training –

we all learned it on Google (and Friending we learned on Facebook)

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Final Thoughts

Consider a wiki for your team as a “Tool Shed”

For broader sharing/collaborating, make the most of your “Town Square” network: •  Tags, Tags, Tags! •  Lead by example (robust profile, etc.) •  Play with the available features – learn what works for you •  Go where you could not go before! New discoveries await…

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Wrap-up

Thank you! Contact info:

Hilary Weber •  hilary.weber@kp.org

How Big Companies Use Social Media

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