When Jackie Alcalde Marr and Mary Ellen Kassotakis gave a presentation at Media Finance Focus 2010, including an article about them in this “Human Resourcefulness” special report was a no brainer. Along with their colleague Arthur Jue, they have coauthored the book Social Media at Work – How Networking Tools Propel Organizational Performance.

As the title suggests, they are bent on dispelling the notion that social media is merely a distraction, without any redeeming qualities when it comes to workplace. They have all

kinds of ideas on how companies can benefit from tapping into the special habits and skills of the Twitterati crowd.

The topic is a natural for both of them. Alcalde Marr is the director of organization and talent development for Oracle, North America. And she’s an adjunct faculty member at the University of San Francisco.

Kassotakis is director of the Leadership Center of Expertise within Oracle’s global organization and

talent development group. Additionally, she serves as an adjunct faculty member at Drexel University.

Recently, TFM editor Janet Stilson traded e-mails with the duo to dig down deeper than the conference session, gleaning more insights into social media’s workplace potential. An edited transcript of their e-conversation follows.

Mary EllEn KassotaKis

JacKiE alcaldE Marr

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Reprinted from the November/December 2010 issue of The Financial Manager magazine

Would you share an anecdote about how com-pany blogs have helped resolve problems or smoothed relationships?

One example of a how a corporate blog can help shape a culture of trust, openness and employee engagement comes from BT Group (British Telecom).

BT provides communications solutions and services to people around the world. They’ve been growing their internal social media footprint steadily since 2007. One of the many events that contributed to that cul-ture was when Ian Livingston was the CEO of the retail division.

He saw a post on BT’s popular blog Cor-porate Newsdesk and felt compelled to offer his opinion. When employees saw his name, they were expecting a corporate perspective, but instead soon recognized that this was a personal, individual [point of view] – just like theirs.

That sort of individual and personal can-dor is how blogs lend themselves to building trust, innovation, and collaboration in orga-nizations of all sizes.

is it very costly, or time consuming, for compa-nies to create social networking platforms?

Depending on your internal technical expertise, you can take advantage of social networking quickly and easily. Because com-panies vary widely in their internal technol-ogy resources and desire to build rather than

Putting Social networkS to workHow can a corporate version of Facebook connect and inspire employees? A duo from Oracle say they know lots of answers to that.

buy, the options are just as varied. Organizations that want to experiment

or collaborate and are not concerned with locking down their conversation may choose to simply create a public social networking site. There are many tools available to do so. Ning.com is probably the most recognized and easiest. The cost is a minimal (a few dol-lars a month).

On the other end of the spectrum, large organizations with IT expertise, such as Oracle, craft their own social networking platforms inside their firewalls with the confi-dence that conversations are held safely with-in their corporate walls. Many organizations are in between, using a combination of the two or partnering with a third party such as Social Text or Jive to customize a social net-working platform that fits their needs, com-pany culture and budget.

But making the tools available to employ-ees is only part of the story. To maximize your investment, it’s worthwhile to ensure someone is looking after the conversation –

making sure it flows well; that comments are visible to the right audiences, and glitches in the system are fixed immediately.

We call this special role the “gardener” – someone (or a team) that tends to the con-tent and the tools to ensure that fledgling ideas are able to sprout, grow and bear fruit. Sure, the community may thrive without a gardener, but it’s always helpful to cultivate the soil to accelerate growth and strong roots. This kind of support enables your social net-work to get off to a good start.

if you were advising a media company that had limited resources for a social networking effort, what’s the first action you would sug-gest that they take?

For media companies just starting out, Ning is a platform to consider for creat-ing your own social network. With Ning, your social network can be for anything and anyone.

You start by naming your social network and choosing a combination of features

(photos, videos, forums, events, etc.) from an ever-growing list of options. After custom-izing, you can launch it. Ning used to be free. However, now there is a small monthly fee.

For many companies, the idea of using social media tools may be so new that they want to proceed slowly and try a few simple ideas. One of the easiest ways to experiment and find immediate value is by using a wiki to schedule a meeting with your team.

We all experience the pain of exponential e-mail when many options are available to a team of several people. Trying to get sched-ules aligned can seem like an impossible and lengthy process of back-and-forth e-mail exchange. Simply list the dates on a wiki,

and ask you team to indicate “yes” or “no” beside the options.

Another idea for those who want to dip their toe in the social media water is to take a quick poll of your team. To prepare for a key decision, or to avoid an unnecessary debate during a meeting, ask your team to weigh in on a key question like: “Where should we have the team [retreat] offsite? Denver or San Francisco?” This activity gets your team on a social tool and allows them to have a simple

and successful experience.

i understand that there are a few different oracle social net-working programs. Which ones are your favorites and why?

Before we respond, we want you to be aware that the views we express are our own and do

not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle.Probably our favorite is our internal Ora-

cle Connect product. Oracle Connect is a service for employees that provides an easy way to network with colleagues; collaborate in groups; aggregate and share vital informa-tion, and discuss that information. Connect’s main goal is to bring Oracle people together: to do work and collaborate, to share inter-ests and to get acquainted with each other. Here are some excerpts from the Connect Web site:

It all starts with a profile. Use your profile to tell your colleagues what you do and what you look like. Don’t be shy, the more you add about yourself, the easier it will be for people to find you. For example, if you worked at PeopleSoft, put that on your profile. When someone searches Connect for “peoplesoft,” your profile will pop up in the results.

Your profile lets you tell the company what you do now, what you’ve done in the past, where you’ve worked before, what you like to do, etc. Have you ever got one of those “would the rep from x corp. please contact me?” A good profile makes those go away for good.

Once you have a good profile, you can start finding people, and they can find you.

That’s when the real collaboration begins. Build a network, join some groups, share ideas, ask questions, comment and exchange thoughts. You can do all this on Connect.

Make no mistake: Oracle does have a Social Media Participation Policy that is distributed to all employees and posted on Connect.

What about the social networking programs

If a company wants to engage a business partner to develop a social networking program, what are the key questions they should ask to determine if the partner is right for them?

When choosing a partner to bring in a social networking platform, be sure to first be clear about your objectives. Your social media approach should clearly assist in meeting your stra-tegic objectives.

If you are prepared to explain how the social networking tools will support your key strate-gies, the partner will be able to tailor a solution that best meets your needs. Without this clar-ity, you may implement a suite of tools that look great, have loads of potential, but will not be adopted in your organization since no one will have a clear need to use them.

Be sure the partner you select is a good fit for your organization. Look for their experience implementing social media as well as their experience doing so in your industry. Check into the technical infrastructure as well. If they will be hosting the system, what are their security protocols and their backup and storage processes? And how will they work with your IT team to ensure a smooth implementation and sustained maintenance?

And finally, don’t underestimate the value of a strong rapport – will these partners be easy to work with over the long haul?

cHoosing tHE rigHt PartnEr

To maximize your investment [in social networks], it’s worthwhile to ensure someone is looking after the conversation … We call this special role the “gardener.”

you’ve studied at other companies. Which ones fascinated you, or excited you, the most?

We studied many types of companies in various industries. Collectively we identified five key areas in which social media has an impact within organizations. These five areas are: attracting and retaining talent, innova-tion, operational efficiency, employee engage-ment and talent development.

One of our favorite examples is from Nokia, the mobile-device maker. Nokia engaged its 100,000+ global workforce with an internal competition to identify the Nokia “core values in action.”

Employees submitted images and songs via their mobile devices into various portals, and later employees voted on which ones best capture Nokia values. Peo-ple tapped into their cre-ativity and had fun doing so while also getting more connected with colleagues across the globe.

Has oracle been able to measure how the social networking programs h ave b e n ef i te d t h e company?

We have not been offi-cially tracking the measurement of how social media programs have benefited the company. Clearly, employees are able to stay connected in a global 24/7 world, and wikis have been helpful in innovation of new technologies. Most teams have their own wikis and chat.

Getting a true measurement of the impact of social technologies would be a very diffi-cult task, and one that we’re not sure is worth the academic effort. How do we measure the impact that cell phones have on our produc-tivity? E-mail? Coffee in the break room?

We asked Richard Dennison, senior man-ager of social media at BT Group, the same question, and he expressed the challenge well: “It’s like opening the bonnet of a car, ripping the pieces out, and asking about the return due to one component.”

At Oracle, our employees know the val-ue of their social media tools. Discussion forums, blogs and wikis have become a com-mon way to connect with colleagues to share ideas, answer questions and help each other get work done.

during your presentation at the MfM confer-ence, one of the attendees mentioned they created a battle book, an online sales network-ing system, which allowed sales departments in different regions of the country to share ideas on how to attract clients with special opportu-nities. do you see much of that going on?

This type of tool is just now gaining trac-tion. However, our studies did not explore how companies are using social media to attract clients.

For sales colleagues who want to share competitive strategies, intelligence about potential clients and best practices in sales

techniques, internal blogs, discussion forums and wikis can be great tools. Also, because some sales-people spend many hours on the plane or in their cars, a podcast series enables them to hear that valuable infor-mation while they’re on the go.

do you have any exam-ples of social networking programs that didn’t work out – where the company ran into some real issues? if so, how did they resolve the problems?

Some companies have a “closed” culture. That is, they are leery of hav-ing information leek in an untimely way to competitors or to the public and/or they have a tradition of “top-down” communication.

Also, companies are afraid of possible legal liabilities with employees sharing faulty infor-mation. Imagine the implications if architec-tural and engineering designs are based on misinformation in the wikis. These are real concerns. However, social media has flattened the world, and “control” over information is more challenging than ever before.

Also, employee privacy is a real concern for most companies across the world.

How does one manage employees’ use of social media so that it doesn’t become a distraction?

Younger entrants into the workforce have grown up with a variety of technologies at their disposal, and yet they graduated from college, had a variety of experiences and are now expecting to continue their connections

during the workday. E-mail is relatively passé for them. That is, social media is not a dis-traction to newer entrants; indeed, it’s the converse. Social media is seen as an impera-tive to stay connected.

Think of instant messaging: if you don’t want to have it on because it’s a distraction, turn it off. Even with Outlook you can turn off the automatic notices of new e-mails and read them when it’s convenient.

We expect that most company policies about the use of social media participation include statements about not allowing the use of social media to interfere with one’s work productivity, with personal activities taking place outside of work.

are there any ways that social media is being used that are just emerging now -- something really cutting edge and futuristic that you think will really catch fire with companies?

Yes, as [the avatar portal] Second Life by Linden Labs and competitors become more sophisticated, faster and more life-like, more companies will jump on the bandwagon to use the technology.

At IBM and other technology-oriented companies, Second Life is being utilized for rapid on-boarding of new employees and talent development programs. Onboarding (i.e., getting new employees up-to-speed and fully productive in a company) typical-ly requires a multitude of transactions and processes to be completed, spanning numer-ous departments and IT systems – every-thing from core HR and payroll systems to company security.

Reducing the myriad transactions to some-thing that new employees can grasp right away is a common goal. Onboarding can also be a tool to inculcate company values and culture.

In Second Life, people create an avatar for themselves (avatars are a graphic depiction of how they would like to appear to others) and to attend virtual meetings with other new recruits and IBM managers. Not surprising-ly, most recruits choose to appear rather as they do in real life.

Imagine that in future, employees will be able to retain connections with colleagues, former colleagues, retirees, partners, etc. Considering how much information and expertise is lost when employees leave, maintaining these links can help com-panies retain information about a broad range of issues. tfM

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