Blah, blah, blah, BLOG!
(Is that all there is?)
Terry McKenzieSenior Director,Global Employee Communications & CommunitiesIABC – March, 2008
blog: http://sun.com.blogs/tmac/
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About Sun...
• Approximately 33,000 employees worldwide• Distributed workforce• Heavy email use• Culture
> Share> Participate> Open> Innovation> Transparency
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From Communications to Communities
Communication?
Interesting.Communities?
Vital.
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From “Old” to New World
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Culture 2005
• Kick butt and have fun• “You aren't the boss of me”• We're right – the rest of the world is wrong• On the defensive (for good reason!)• Personality cult around CEO
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Communication Environment 2004
• No paper• Email favorite communication method• Robust intranet – 35,000 plus hits a day• Mandated town halls for top 15 executives• Podcasts popular• #1 communication complaint by employees:
information overload
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Some Dates on the Path
• 2004 > Sun COO Jonathan Schwartz
launches blog• 2005
> YouTube founded> Wikipedia has 750,000 entries
• 2007> Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz
issues challenge to Employee Communications Group
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Culture 2008
• “Let's just imagine – for one minute – that the analysts are right, and we DO suck...”
• Accountability• Teamwork• Very much more adult-to-adult• Transparency, authenticity, courage highly valued
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Communication Environment 2008
• Robust intranet but down to 8,000 hits a day• No mandated town halls• wikis.sun.com • Videocasts/podcasts • Virtual town halls, virtual conferences • Almost 4,000 bloggers (all external)• Close to 5,500 Sun employees on Facebook• Around 50 Facebook Sun groups• Six Sun islands in Second Life
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Communication Environment 2010
• Participation rules – and is rewarded• Experts outside of org charts• Intranet outside firewall
> Any device, anywhere, any time • Mandated virtual town halls for top executives• 33,000 Sun employees building communities via
technology
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Intranet 2010
• Outside firewall• Layered security• 90/10 instead of 10/90 • RSS/gadget-driven• 33,000 employees on social graph • Social equity rewards participation
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Blogging...Is that all there is?
Well, no.
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Blogging...Is that all there is?
It was just our starting point...
Guiding Principles & Tips
Know What You Want to Accomplish
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Common Social Networking Goals
• Connect with friends and co-workers quickly• Influence others• Share • Play• Get what you want (not what
someone else wants you to have)• Build communities
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Matching Tools to Goals
• Wikis for collaboration/knowledge sharing
• Blogs to build reputation, share information • Text messaging/IM for quick connections• Forums and message boards to get employee
feedback, solve mutual problems• Facebook, MySpace, Ning to build relationships,
share
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Who is Using Social Media at Sun?• Our CEO • Corporate Groups
> Global Employee Communications and Communities> Sun Learning Services> Marketing/PR> People and Places (HR)
• Engineering Groups> Global Systems Engineering> Sun Labs
....to name a few
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Reasons to Blog
• Engage in industry conversation• Direct way for executives to communicate with
customers, shareholders, partners, and employees• Promotes transparency• Free PR (if used correctly)• Authenticity
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And Reasons Not to....
• Company culture • Comfort level with risk• Not everyone is a good writer• Your executive wants to use a ghost writer• Need to post regularly• Patience...It takes time to build a readership
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Bottom Line: Can You Live with This?
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Sun Blog Policy – My Interpretation
• Be interesting• Don't be stupid• If you get in trouble, we won't pay the legal bills
(For the official policy, go to: http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/blogs/policy.html)
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Other Applications
• Customer conference building wiki• Training,selling, celebrating in Second Life• Dialogue through forums, bloggers' alias• Collaboration through wikis and collab sites• Virtual conferences/meetings• Relationship building at Facebook• CEpedia
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The Social GraphManage comprehensive Social Graph of activities, personal profiles, relationships, social groupings and fine-grained privacy settings for personal data.
•Personal Profile information w/fine grained privacy settings•Relationships between people
> Friendships, business connections•Memberships in Groups / Networks•Enables better
> Personalization> Sharing
> Activities> Communications> Travel / event plans
> Collaboration
IBM
Sun
Developers
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Social Architecture
• Know your audience• Lead by example• Social equity • WIIFM, MMFI, MMFV• Make it easy• Be patient
It's a social movement more than a technology. Treat it as such.
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Social Architecture Scope
Build the infrastructure for those who will be here in five years, not necessarily for those who are here today
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Policy & Governance
• Privacy issues • Publishing rules – what, to whom when?• Context Matters• Litigation• Intellectual property• IT conformance and flexibility• EOL rules
Somebody has to be the adult (sigh).
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What We're Doing at Sun
• We don't control, we encourage• We educate: Internally and externally• We leverage our culture• We value interaction/participation• We explore and experiment• We look both to the future and to the present• We avoid reinventing the wheel • We embrace chaos!
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Our Mantra
Everything always in beta Jonathan Schwartz, CEO, Sun
Microsystems
Blah, blah, blah, BLOG!
(Is that all there is?)
Terry McKenzieSenior Director,Global Employee Communications & CommunitiesIABC – March, 2008
blog: http://sun.com.blogs/tmac/
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Appendix
• Usage examples• Social Media Readiness Tips• Recommended Reading• Other cool places to check out
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Global Systems Engineering
• Blogs> blogs.sun.com/stern> blogs.sun.com/gsedivas> blogs.sun.com/innovation
• CEpedia wiki (behind firewall)> People, communities> Architecture, products> Contests, announcements, voting, ratings
• Podcasts> Innovating@Sun> Geek Speak
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Digital Library Services
• Blogs• Wikis• Twitter• RSS• Sun in Second Life
>Training for employees>Six islands >Main Pavillion showcase for technology>Employee only island
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GECCO: Social Media Mashup
• WHO: Social media partners/thought-leaders• WHY: Networking and information sharing• HOW: Panel discussions & time to network
> Inventory of progress in various parts of Sun > Best practices in community building> Privacy/security
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“Getting Started” Guide
Wiki with information on various types of social media tools
Distributed virally through a variety of channelsAlso educating entire comms team
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Online Forum
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Facebook Application
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Social Media Readiness Tips• Identify your end goal• Identify social media tool(s) that best match(es) your
end goal• Know your culture – does social media fit with your
organization's culture?• Know your audience, their needs, likes, and dislikes• Keep it simple; make it easy• Identify change management practices needed to bring
others along> Know the WIIFM> Know your challenges
• Involve the right people• Identify proper owner/sponsor
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Recommended Reading
• The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson• The Cult of the Amateur, by Andrew Keen • Wikinomics, by Don Tapscott & Anthony D.
Williams • Made to Stick, by Chip Heath & Dan Heath • The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell • The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki• Sun Blogs:
> Jonathan's Blog http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/> Tmac http://blogs.sun.com/tmac/category/Sun> MaryMary http://blogs.sun.com/mary/> DD Eco Notes http://blogs.sun.com/enviro/> CSR http://blogs.sun.com/csr/
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Additional Sites & Tools
• Yahoo! Pipes: http://pipes.yahoo.com> Composition tool for aggregation etc.
• StumbleUpon.com
• SecondLife:Online digital world for social networking
• Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Seesmic, Utterz etc.
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com
• Wikis at Sun: http://wikis.sun.com
• Openeco.org
• Netvibes.com