Newsletter

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Topics covered are: Social Business; Innovation and Idea Management; Collaboration; Knowledge Management; Organisational Change and Transformation. Check out some examples below:

• Social Business Innovation
• Practical Social Media
• Social Business evidence mounting – Research

Insights

From time to time I pull together reports after I’ve done a piece of work and I am able to share insights. Below is the summary of such a report or you can download the full report to read at your leisure – it’s a PDF. As a subscriber to my newsletter you are sure to be notified when I share my next one. You can also view an embedded slideshow of the report and comment more easily in this blog post.

I was asked by a global financial services firm’s UK office (staff 4500 in UK) to conduct a robust evaluation/selection process for a new social idea management system. The ultimate intention was to improve companywide innovation efforts. Alongside the final decision, a framework was needed for addressing implementation and adoption considerations.

1. Selecting

Starting with a campaign on LinkedIn targeted at key idea management vendors to raise awareness and identify those interested in taking part. An initial list of potential vendors was then whittled down from a long list to short list using quantifiable measures based on key requirements. Detailed briefing sessions and further analysis and demonstrations of capability were used to make a final selection.

2. Implementing

Key considerations for implementation planning were to consider the main benefits that should be targeted and could reasonably be expected from overall efforts. Resourcing for maintenance was another key area, i.e. how should the organisation plan to gear itself up to be most effective in reaching targets set. A further element addressed was the types of metrics to be used.

3. Adopting

The migration of users to the new system and how this should best be handled and then the ongoing question of user engagement and growth was addressed. The question of whether this was at all important and if so, what in particular, was addressed including examples of where it had gone well with others. Key recommendations were to adopt a grassroots strategy and to have a plan to mitigate potential pitfalls.

Let me know what you think, how the report could be improved and what you would have done differently? You could also let me know what other areas of social business might be interesting so that I can cover them in future reports.