Many organizations adopt a collaboration platform or social enterprise tool in hopes of sparking productive internal conversations. The trick is to align your communication goals with the right tools and expectations.
CEO blogs offer a good example of what often happens when these elements don’t line up well. Lots of companies like the idea of using a CEO blog to make announcements. In theory, the blog offers a platform that encourages people to comment and share ideas and perspectives based on this shared information.
The only problem is that hardly anyone ever responds to these CEO blogs. Perhaps one or two comments go up, but nothing dramatic or interesting enough to drive a real meaningful conversation. After a few of these non-conversations, people stop paying attention to the blog.
The problem isn’t necessarily the content the CEO is presenting — it may be the mechanics of the communication platform. Email, for instance, offers a great way for two people to communicate, with a limited amount of back and forth. But trying to hold a group conversation via email invites confusion and misunderstandings, simply because the medium isn’t well-suited to organizing and differentiating between comments, responses, replies to comments and so on.
Presenting the same types of announcements via different platforms may generate quite different responses. If the CEO sends out announcements as a company-wide post via social enterprise tool like Yammer, people are able to respond quickly, and know that others are ready to join in and start a conversation. Compared to the blog format, the newsfeed is designed to support a more conversational flow.
While the usability of a collaboration platform plays a big role in shaping conversations, the other key is to understand and meet the communication expectations surrounding that tool. When using a social enterprise platform to communicate, for example, the CEO should be prepared to respond to the conversations they start. While most employees wouldn’t expect instantaneous replies from the CEO, they do expect a timely reply in this format. At minimum, the CEO needs to set aside a little time once a day to respond directly to these conversations, and to respond in the newsfeed — not by diverting the discussion into an email or phone calls.
So, what kinds of communications are best for Yammer and similar social enterprise platforms? The best use for newsfeeds is when you want a direct response on a topic from more than one person and the discussion has relevance for a larger group. This group might be company-wide, as with the CEO announcement example, for a certain department or for a very specific community built around a certain technology or project.
Phrasing your post as a question often helps elicit replies, as does addressing individual people by name. In a team project discussion, for example, you might post something to the project group along these lines: “I just talked to Bob about our project and he said [something about the project]. Katherine, what do you think?” Then you’ve addressed two people who are likely to respond, while keeping the conversation open to others in that group who want to participate.
In the end, the best collaboration platform for a given communication depends on your motivations and goals. In some cases, an email or a blog is a better choice than a newsfeed, and vice versa. Choose the platform that helps your employees capture knowledge and be productive.
Learn more about implementing social enterprise platforms by contacting Portal Solutions.
