saba wp enterprise social networking

8/8/2019 Saba Wp Enterprise Social Networking

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whitepaper

Enterprise Social Networking:

People Productivity in a Web 2.0 World

In an era of heightened

competition and a

changing workforce, new

models of peer-to-peer

interactions and

networked, community-

based collaboration are

creating exceptional

business value.


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white paper | Enterprise Social Networking: People Productivity in a Web 2.0 World

Contents

Introduction 1

Why Web 2.0 is important or business leaders 1

Key Web 2.0 concepts 1

The usion o ormal and inormal learning creates a powerul new model o

blended learning: Learning 2.0 2

The need or a connected corporate community 3

Enterprise social networking orms the core o a connected corporate community 4

Enterprise social networking puts Web 2.0 into action or the enterprise 6

Web conerencing plays an important role in enterprise social networking 6

Leveraging enterprise social networking to get more value rom your talent

management initiatives 8

Engage new employees with peer-to-peer onboarding 8

Reward people based on ormal and inormal measures o success 8

Understand your talent 9

Uniy ormal and inormal processes in a single talent management platorm 10

The Saba Advantage 11

One platorm or enterprise social networking and end-to-end talent management 11

Conclusion 12


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IntroductionWhy Web 2.0 is important for business leaders

The notion o Web 2.0 as the oundation or the latest generation o web

applications has received a lot o press lately. While it may not have ully lived

up to its hype yet, it is already beginning to change the way that business

executives Human Resources (HR) and Training included are approaching

talent management. The philosophies and technologies underlying the Web

2.0 evolution give HR organizations a way to proactively address the realities

that they have long known: that true people productivity requires inormal

collaboration and knowledge sharing across teams, and that true organizational

knowledge rarely ollows traditional managerial lines. Web 2.0 also provides

the mindset needed to create the type o environment in which the younger

generations o workers expect to work: a connected corporate community.

Key Web 2.0 concepts

There are three important philosophies underlying Web 2.0 that can play a

vital role in your companys ability to take better advantage o the inormal

interactions that drive productivity, learning, and innovation:

1. User-generated content,

2. Collective intelligence, and

3. The social networking that brings it all together.

Used in conjunction with each other, these philosophies become the levers that

drive exponential value rom collaboration and knowledge sharing.

User-generated content is typied by inormation resources such as Wikipedia

or YouTube.com. On these web sites, user-generated content is everything:

take away the users, and there is no content. The community not some

individual author creates the content; contributes it; governs it by determining

its accuracy, useulness, and relevance; and the communitys collective wisdom

ensures that the resource is updated as needed.

Collective intelligence describes how the grouping o opinions, observations,

or impressions i collected in a way that does not introduce bias leads to

better inormation. For example, i 100 individuals are asked to estimate how

many jelly beans are in a jar, the average o their guesses is likely to be highly

accurate and much more accurate than the groups estimate would have been.

Similarly, i a group o 10,000 movie-goers reviews a particular lm, the groups

consensus on that movie is more likely to be refective o its audience appeal

than the comments o any one reviewer.


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These are the concepts at play on sites such as Amazon.com or Netfix, which

allow users to make more inormed decisions based on recommendations

and behavior o others (the people-who-liked-this-movie-also-like-this-

movie concept). Collective intelligence is a undamental strength o a site like

Wikipedia: Millions o users who are continuously

reviewing a large number o entries can be even

more accurate than the small group o experts that

edits traditional encyclopedias. The success o this

site also shows the power that comes rom mixing

user-generated content with collective intelligence.

In a learning situation, the collective intelligence

o learners can help organizations determine what

ormal learning and which inormal contributions

rom experts actually help their people learn most

eectively. In collective intelligence scenarios,

the simplicity o the process (just a click on the stars) and a high-volume o

responses are the drivers o success.

Social networking reers to the growing number o online communities o

people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring

the interests and activities o others. Social networking has created powerul

new ways to communicate and share inormation because it creates a critical

mass o people who are able to easily connect and share inormation with one

another and who understand enough about each other to trust in the collective

intelligence they generate.

The fusion of formal and informal learning creates a powerful new

model of blended learning: Learning 2.0

Lets look at how these new concepts are

transorming the learning unction. The U.S.

Department o Labor has estimated that 70% or

more o work-related learning is inormal. With such

a high percentage o workorce learning dependent

on institutional knowledge or organizational memory

shared inormally peer-to-peer being able to

eectively capture and capitalize on this community

knowledge is critical to your success.

Technology to support ormal learning, including learning management systems

and virtual classrooms, already provide an organization with signicant value

today. But consider that the value o these technologies is largely derived rom

Web 2.0, is a major paradigm shit inthe way people think.Thinking is nowdistributed across minds, tools and

media, groups o people, and space

and time.Chris Dede

Harvard Graduate School o Education

The US Department o Labor reportsthat inormal learning accounts or 70percent o the learning that employ-

ees do on the job.CLO Magazine


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improving the eciency and eectiveness o essentially 30% o the learning

equation. Now imagine the extraordinary opportunity o even a small percentage

gain in the management o or visibility into the inormal learning process that

comprises 70% o the knowledge transer

within your organization.

Eective inormal learning solutions built

on Web 2.0 ideas embrace user-generated

content and collective intelligence in the

workplace, helping to create valuable

ongoing dialog amongst peer groups,

and acilitating access to the enormous

storehouses o knowledge within the

corporate community. Instead o justattending ormal training or scheduled

meetings, people can also collaborate and learn continuously through

multiple channels, with networked learning geared to their specic needs or

assignments. And people can easily take advantage o the collective intelligence

available to close knowledge gaps and nd answers more eciently and

eectively. This shit to embrace Web 2.0 concepts and technology in your

learning and collaboration eorts has been dubbed Learning 2.0, and you can

expect it to impact your business in very positive and dramatic ways in the

coming months and years.

The need for a connected corporate community

The Web 2.0 concepts we have described originally came to lie on the consumer

Internet; and no group o consumers has been more active in driving them

than your youngest generation o workers. These 18 to 26 year-old Millennial

Generation employees are accustomed to being online almost continuously;

Facebooking, texting and blogging rom their PCs, cell phones, or just about any

other device. They are not thinking about Web 2.0 tools and ideas, they are living

them. In their personal lives and on campus, they have been:

SharinginformationaboutthemselvesviapersonalprolesonMySpaceor

Facebook.

Usingthesesamesitestokeeptrackofwhattheirfriendsaredoinginschool

or or un. Sharingtheironlinestatusthroughpresencetrackingsothattheirfriendsand

classmates know when they can and cant be reached online.

Getting other points o view andother pieces o knowledge into ourlearning system that might otherwise

have escaped is key to our success

as an organization.Brad Anderson

CEO, Best Buy


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As these technically savvy Millennials enter the workorce, they bring new

ideas about how people across the workorce should interact with each other

they expect to work in a connected corporate community. A connected

corporate community is one where they can nd co-workers to help them solve

a problem or contribute their own valuable ideas almost anywhere, anytime.

And it is an environment where inormation about people is more transparent

than it has ever been in the past. Just as they have been able to learn about

what their peers are doing on Facebook, they expect ready access to relevant

inormation about their colleagues at work what theyre working on as well as

their education, experience, exposure, and interests.

Why should business leaders pay attention to these trends? First o all, because

the organizations that embrace the connected corporate community will be

the ones that attract, engage, and retain the best talent. Also important is thisinevitable act: organizations that ignore these trends will ace potential risks

rom collaboration that goes on through unsanctioned means. According to

John Seely Brown, ormer chie scientist o Xerox and PARC director, A lot

o corporations are using (collaborative tools) without top management even

knowing it. Think about these risks:

Customers,clientsorevenyourcompetitioncouldstumbleacrossapublic

blog. Public blogs oten jump to the top o search engine results because

they are updated requently.

Employeesmaysharetrademarkorcopyrightideasorothercondential

materials on a semi-secure collaboration site.

Salesteamsmaydiscusscondentialpricingtermsoveraconsumerinstantmessaging tool.

The best way to avoid these types o risks is to provide your employees with

a sae, productive ways to connect with each other through channels that

protect both the organization and the individual rom inormation leak and

credibility damage.


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Enterprise social networking forms the

core of a connected corporate communityMost enterprises provide their employees with a variety o tools and

technologies that help them share inormation. This includes e-mail, shared

network drives and document repositories, or document management systems

to name a ew. In general, these tools support collaboration in an inormation-

centric manner. That is, the inormation might be organized into a knowledge

taxonomy or hierarchy o les and olders but there is no context about who

contributed it, why it was contributed, or i it is helpul. Searches on inormation-

centric document systems tend to return lots o documents without giving an

employee any way to determine what will be most relevant or valuable or a

particular problem.

More importantly, there is very little incentive or employees to contribute into

systems like this because they are disconnected rom their day-to-day work

and normal peer interactions. E-mail is an obvious exception to that rule,

but inormation exchange that occurs via e-mail is isolated and cannot be

eectively or meaningully captured or the benet o the greater community.

These are some o the reasons that organizations have struggled with traditional

knowledge management eorts: users are not inclined to participate and it is

nearly impossible to build a taxonomy that provides enough context to give all

workers the answers they are looking or.

A connected corporate community is built around a very dierent model o

collaboration: an enterprise social networking model that revolves around

people rather than inormation. In this model, collaborative processes occur in

the context o all o the rich inormation

that you have about your people, and

with ull visibility to this inormation. This

inormation might include their skills, job

experience, education, and interests. All

o this is available to the right people at

the right time when they have a problem

they need to solve. And members o the

connected corporate community can ndinormation and assess its value based on

who contributed it, not just where it lies in a corporate taxonomy. For example, i

a new sales person is searching or eective sales presentations and collateral,

he or she will quickly nd the best material by seeing that a respected star

People-centric models work.

When we search or a book,

we can search by title and

get lucky, or we can search

by trusted author and fnd a

good book.


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perormer in the sales organization recommends a particular set o materials

and that employees who have validated expertise (held competencies or

certications) on specic products have created useul technical guides.

Traditional HR systems have tracked a limited set o employee inormation,

primarily basic demographics. Todays talent management systems contain

rich personal proles proles that go beyond demographic inormation to

include skills, education, job experience, and interests and give members o

the community a complete picture o their peers. The day-to-day investments

that organizations make in HR and learning programs such as competency and

certication management are generating people inormation that, when made

available through enterprise social networking, can produce exponential value.

Consider two basic examples:

Informationfromformallearningandtalentmanagementprocesses:Ifyouhave a certication or competency ramework in place, everyone will be able

to take advantage o the work that you have done to dene this ramework.

Just as visibility into these skills can help HR to identiy development

opportunities or determine which employees might excel in a particular

position, they can likewise help your employees at large to identiy which

people will have the best insight into the problem they are trying to solve.

Informationfrominformalsources:Asuserscreateandshareinformation,

they leave a trail o knowledge in your system that the community can

assess or useulness and accuracy. That inormation becomes extremely

valuable to the community in identiying expertise, which adds to the data

that the organization has to do the same.

Enterprise social networking puts Web 2.0 into action for the enterpriseLets get back to the Web 2.0 concepts we discussed earlier: user-generated

content, collective intelligence, and social networking. With a rich personal

prole orming the oundation, these concepts are what make enterprise social

networking dierent rom traditional inormation-centric collaboration.

In either a traditional or Web 2.0 collaboration model, any user can generate

content using tools such as such as Wikis, blogs, team spaces, discussion

orums, and web conerencing. However, as the content is created or organized

in a repository, an enterprise social networking model enriches the inormation

contained in the content with the ull context o the people who created it and

the value that people perceive it has or the community.

This context is what can then be exploited through collective intelligence o

a network o people across the enterprise, or even the extended enterprise.

Your people themselves are the best judges o what is most relevant and most

valuable in a given situation, and the skills and experiences o each member


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o the community aect how their ratings are assessed by others in the

organization. I the creator o a post on eective ways to rollout a new enterprise

application is a top-rated IT person, that might make their contribution more

credible. And it also is valuable to understand what training the contributor has

completed on the new product beore they made their posting. This combination

o inormal ratings and ormal transcripts and experience tracking inorms the

value o social interactions, increasing the value o collaboration. As employees

are able to network and group themselves not according to job or business

unit but by competencies, experience, or interests, they nd new avenues or

sharing. In addition, their ratings and tags become more relevant to the people

in their networks.

Enterprise social networking means that ideas are shared more reely, that

previously unheard experts now have equal voices, and that more people acrossthe globe are communicating with each other without barriers.

Web conferencing plays an important role in enterprise social networking

One o the biggest barriers to success or traditional collaboration and knowledge

management initiatives has been getting the most knowledgeable people to take

the time to contribute. Web conerencing oers a great deal o promise to remove

this barrier, giving community members one o the easiest ways possible to

create their own content. Whether you are

capturing a conversation amongst experts,

conducting a system demonstration,

or simply discussing a ew PowerPointslides, the process is just a ew clicks.

Subject matter experts simply start a

session, record it, and publish it. Eective,

interactive real-time collaboration also

extends inormal, spontaneous interactions

that happen ace-to-ace to colleagues

across the globe. This can increase the

depth o connections in a community,

and it encourages contributions and

involvement. However, much like traditional

inormation-centric collaboration, Web conerencing tools typically operate ina meeting-centric model. You go to the Web conerencing tool to set up and

conduct a meeting. The meeting might be recorded or the participants uture

reerence, but in most cases the knowledge that was shared in the session does

not reach any urther than those participants.

To move beyond this

meeting-centric model, web

conerencing tools need to be

integrated with an enterprise

social networking platorm

that provides broader access

to both the content created

and the context o meeting

participants knowledge and

interests, their separate and

shared roles and experience.


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To move beyond this meeting-centric model, Web conerencing tools need to

be deeply embedded in an enterprise social networking platorm that provides

broader access to both the content created and the context o meeting

participants knowledge and interests, their separate and shared roles, and

experience. During the meeting, participants can see the ull knowledge network

o meeting participants, and this inormation can lead them to ask better

questions or nd new experts to help them. Participants can even locate new

experts, nd them online, and bring them into a meeting on-the-fy. Ater the

meeting, the whole community benets rom recorded sessions that can quickly

be contributed to communities based on roles or other organizational divisions,

and easily rated and/or tagged by the community. Each presenters experience,

competencies, and other relevant inormation rom his or her prole can be

seen not only by real-time meeting participants, but also by people viewing the

recorded session.

The value o Web conerencing tools typically ends when a meeting is over; but

the value o Web conerencing in the context o enterprise social networking

extends indenitely. A group o people should be able to take a discussion

that is happening in real-time over Web conerencing and move it to an

asynchronous ormat, where they can share documents and ideas whenever

they have the time. Likewise, an established community o practice should have

instant access to web conerencing rom wherever they congregate online.

Enterprise social networking is a very important aspect o how organizations

will use their web conerencing tools in the uture. Organizations will get the

most value out o their Web conerencing investments i they can embed Web

conerencing deeply within all o their people processes, rather than keeping it as

a separate inrastructure. It is the rich inormation about people that evolves Web

conerencing rom a meeting tool into strategic, enterprise social networking.


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Leveraging enterprise social networking

to get more value from your talentmanagement initiatives

Enterprise social networking gives the organization an unprecedented level

o knowledge about its talent. Management can look at who are the most

valuable contributors and where knowledge lies. It gives the organization an

unprecedented level o agility in how the organization as a whole is prepared to

respond to a changing business environment. And, enterprise social networking

gives HR executives new insight into the value and potential o their workorce,

providing new ways to identiy star perormers who should be rewarded and

new ways to groom uture leaders.

Engage new employees with peer-to-peer onboarding

Enterprise social networking provides a great way to engage workers in the

connected corporate community rom their rst day on the job. Imagine a new

research scientist logging into a system that has automatically assigned required

learning and perormance goals aligned to organizational objectives; and that

also recommends the most popular knowledge assets based on the scientists

job role, business unit, and work location.

Not only do employees have instant access to valuable sources o knowledge that

will make them successul, but they also have a way to explore strong networks

o trusted advisors that will give them the inormal guidance they need to become

star perormers. By being able to connect with their peers, as well as experts and

mentors, they may even develop interests they did not initially have, transorming

them into a more engaged workorce with signicantly higher productivity.

Reward people based on formal and informal measures of success

Today, the perormance goals that many managers assign to their team

members are narrowly ocused on either achieving a certain amount o growth,

completing a task or project or developing the individuals skills. Consequently,

this also means that perormance reviews are typically based on pre-determined

expectations. Oten, they do not take into consideration activities the individual

has done that are not related directly to his or her job description, even i those

activities play a vital role in achieving the goals o the organization. And they

rarely look at the unexpected value an individual provides in nding a new

solution, helping a new employee, or driving a critical objective that wasnt

established in their goals.


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Employees want to be evaluated based on what they are doing to help their team

and their organization. They want to be able to show their managers how they

are contributing to a wide network across the organization and how highly their

ideas are valued, so that they can make the right case or raises and promotions.

What i, as a manager, you could not only measure a person by how well they

have met certain goals, but also by how much they have contributed to the

community? Or better yet, as a Talent Ocer, what i you could nd emerging

thought leaders based on not only how much they have contributed, but even

more importantly, how well their thoughts have been received? What better way

to assess the talent you have than by looking at the value o their contributions

as measured by their peers? Business and HR leaders can engage and motivate

their workorce in a much better way by dening true measures o success a

usion o ormal and inormal measures.

Understand your talent

Todays competency and expertise management models in talent management

solutions also must evolve to be able to assess the broader value o individuals

within your organization. This will require sophisticated new tools that analyze

each individuals role and value in inormal learning using clearly dened

metrics. These ratings can be extremely valuable in large organizations where

a given employee couldnt possibly know all the people who could be helpul

in a particular area. There are a number o ways or implementing the metrics,

ranging rom systems that reward people based on the number o times they

supply helpul knowledge within a community, to something as simple astracking how requently a given users contributions have been bookmarked as

a measure o their relevance and value.

Based on the concept o collective intelligence, next-wave models or valuing

peoples contributions to the organization based on their reputations will be

better, more accurate, and much more easily implemented than any attempts

to create similar models in the past. Talent ocers will be better able to nd

emerging leaders across the enterprise. And they will surace individuals who

might not normally get the recognition they deserve, and worse, might end up

leaving the organization with all the knowledge they have.

Couple this with sharing best practices internally and asking your leaders tomonitor and own communities o practice, and you will not only be able to nd

new thought leaders, but you will also be able to engage them in mentoring

programs, expand their skill sets, and create new possible jobs and directions

or the organization.


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Unify formal and informal processes in a single talent management platform

Enterprise social networking drives collaboration that is integrally tied to how

you manage your talent. The rich people proles tracked in a next generation

talent management system provide the ull context necessary to build a

connected corporate community; and the visibility that you get into peoples

inormal contributions can drive more inormed decisions about how you

manage your talent. A unied talent management platorm or both ormal

people processes and inormal, enterprise social networking enables the bi-

directional fows that strengthen both sets o processes.

FORMAL

Learning

Learning Management

or certications,channel readiness, andcourseware

Performance

Perormance reviews and

goals and objectives oraligned organization

Talent

Plan uture workorce

needs and successionstrategies

Compensation

Pay or potential,

perormance, andcriticality

INFORMAL

Learning

Capture the 70%

o learning that isinormal

Communities around

existing curricula

Performance

Evaluate contribution,

not just objectiveachievement

Talent

Share knowledge

across workorcegenerations

Flatten the organization

by dispersing

knowledgeIdentiy experts and

mentors

Compensation

Compensation or

inormal contributions

Intrinsic satisaction

rom sense o

community Social

Rewards

Connections within a unied platorm or ormal and inormal people processes.


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The Saba AdvantageOne platform for enterprise social networking and end-to-end talent

management

Through its seamless unication o real-time collaboration (Saba Centra), anytime

collaboration (Saba Social), learning (Saba Learning), and people management

(Saba Perormance and Saba Talent), Saba is the only vendor to oer a single,

best-in-class platorm to support the connected corporate community.

Saba Centra is a powerul, ull-eatured Web conerencing solution that is ideal

or virtual classes, web seminars and workshops, scheduled e-meetings, and

impromptu collaboration among large or small groups. Leading businesses,

government organizations, and universities worldwide rely on it.

Saba Centra sessions take ull advantage o video, audio, text, and graphics

as well as mechanisms or the interactive review o materials such as application

sharing or similar unctions to eectively capture and share community-based

knowledge. Another critical capability built into Saba Centra is a set o powerul,

yet easy-to-use recording and content-editing tools to quickly create, manage,

and publish proessional-quality, media-rich content online and ofine. The


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solutions intuitive interace lets rst-time users capture inormal knowledge

within minutes with little or no training and add any session to your

corporate knowledge base as a knowledge object.

Saba Social is a ully-eatured enterprise social networking platorm that brings

anytime collaboration such as team spaces, document sharing, discussions

and Wikis to connect people to expertise throughout your organization. Saba

Social streamlines inormal learning through the easy exchange o inormation

and ideas regardless o where people may be geographically located. It also

makes it easier or teams working on cross-unctional initiatives to interact and

acilitates a host o mentoring programs and other talent development initiatives.

Saba Centra and Saba Social take advantage o the rich user proles that are

at the core o Sabas unied suite to provide a ull context around collaboration.

In addition, the collaboration capabilities available with these solutions are

readily accessible within ormal learning, perormance, and talent management

processes. Because o Sabas deep knowledge o people in the workplace and

our robust Web conerencing experience, the company is uniquely capable

o providing one platorm that brings together all the capabilities needed or

collaboration and a ull range o talent management requirements.

According to Bersin & Associates, Sabas vision with Centra is to solve

(the Blended Learning) problem in a single, enterprise-wide solutionAs

organizations (evolve) they realize that the vast array o learning assets they

build needs to be managed, reused, and leveraged across on-demand learning

needs. This new era o e-learningrequires an even higher level o integration

and content management. We think that Saba and Centras vision or this

solution is right on track.1

1 Saba Acquires Centra, online post by Bersin & Associates, May 12th, 2007,

http://bersin.wordpress.com/2007/05/12/saba-acquires-centra/


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2009 Saba. All rights reserved. Saba, the Saba logo, Saba Centra, and the marks relating to Saba products and services reerenced herein are either trademarks

or registered trademarks o Saba or its aliates. All other trademarks are the property o their respective owners.

Saba 2400 Bridge Parkway Redwood Shores CA 94065-1166 USA (+1) 877.SABA.101 or (+1) 650.779.2791 www.saba.com Rev. 10/08

ConclusionFor virtually every business, your employees represent by ar the largest

investment. An ecient, productive workorce oers the potential to deliver ahigher return on your money than any other asset. The ability o your people

to identiy opportunities, innovate solutions, and provide unanticipated levels

o service can drive your growth in even the most crowded and competitive

segments. Smart businesses are adopting innovative people management

practices to establish and maintain meaningul dierentiation in the marketplace,

and achieve aster innovation and better productivity.

Many o these businesses are discovering that applying new models o

collaboration and networked, community-based learning is an essential people

management practice or an evolving workorce. Web 2.0 has provided a whole

new set o tools and more importantly, a mindset that helps people engage

with their peers and mentors, connect and collaborate more eectively, and

capture the vast amounts o inormal knowledge that are otherwise lost ater

a single interaction. It is an opportunity to provide people with the means to

create content, leverage community-based knowledge, and connect with anyone

who can help them get their jobs done better. It is also an opportunity or the

connected corporate community to identiy, mentor and groom its uture leaders.

Only Saba provides a single, unied platorm or enterprise social networking

both real-time and non-real-time and end-to-end talent management.

This unied approach delivers organizations the insight and visibility to drive

exponential value in their people processes through higher productivity, aster

innovation, and more eective learning.

For more inormation about the unied Saba Suite, including Saba Centra and

Saba Social, please visit www.saba.com.

saba wp enterprise social networking

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