Step 1 Complete. Now what?
With my earlier ideas swirling around my head about social media capital and a desire to actually build something instead of talking about it, we did just that. Our secret team went ahead and “just made” a community environment where anyone in the company can share tips or interesting content or can ask questions and tap the resources of those who they would have never met otherwise - all within the safe confines of the company firewall.
It’s an environment I’ve been clamoring for since, well, forever. Built entirely from open-source software and on “side” time - lunch breaks, etc, it was totally free. I’m working on ease-of-use, but it’s pretty darn easy. And slick, with all the Web 2.0/Ajax/live updating stuff we’ve grown to love.
The business case for its use seems straightforward, too. People can tap a much larger resource pool than just those they already know, and the task of answering questions becomes a distributed one, where those who have the time and the expertise can spend the time to answer. It can bring employees closer and drive respect between them. Best of all, it’s archived and searchable so it’s great for Knowledge Management. The content will be available long after certain people have moved on. We’ve all seen these benefits as we’ve used Google alongside blogs and forums to find the answers we’re looking for on the web.
So now what?
A website is obviously not a community. The people make it a community. How do you engage the people and get them excited about contributing? How do you get management to get excited about these tools when they haven’t experienced them first hand?
Well, we’re starting small: finding the leaders in the company who might see a use for it or who understand its use and could lead by example. Those examples are important as they give others who view the site permission to participate.
The whole thing is kind of akin to starting a fire. I believe we have the kindling but the tricky part is figuring out how to get a spark and then blowing on it just enough. All in all, this is one of the most exciting things I’ve been a part of in a while, though. But the technical part is not the hard part. The hard part is just beginning.
