Blogging by senior management appears to be an ongoing struggle. I wrote about it earlier and remarked that it is not for everyone.
In my opinion, key success factors are:
You need to like doing it. It will cost a lot of time and effort, and if you do not like to spend that on writing, you’d better use your time in another way.
You need to add something new to the mix, something your employees have not already heard several times through your official channels.
Last week, I came across two other articles about executive blogging.
Do not blog if you do not know where you are going
She also mentions that executives have to feel a need to blog. There should be something driving them, whether that is their personal opinions, a need to interact with employees or a need to change behaviours. If they feel they do it because they have to, they better find another channel or another way altogether.
And while it is not necessarily wrong to hire a ghostwriter, an executive has to feed that person with the direction, the tone-of-voice, personality and topics. They can not leave it all to the writer. But remember: they should always post their blog themselves!
That sounds more forbidding than it really is. Nick warns that senior management should not blog about knowledge management, at least not about anything other than stating its importance.
In general, a senior manager’s blog will be too formal (an official communication), too hierarchical and too conceptual to be of practical use. It is not a good example to start informal company-wide knowledge sharing between peers.
Nick gives a few better options for using blogging as a method of sharing knowledge among employees.
I strongly support that opinion, just like I support blogging instead of publishing monthly newsletters.
I am almost starting to feel sorry for all executives.
If they have the drive and enthusiasm (which appears not to happen too often), then they are forbidden to blog about a certain topic. If wonder if any executive still has any motivation left after all this. 🙂
Some weeks ago I offered a project team to create a Yammer group. It was a team with a lot of externals, so it had to be an external group. Or so I thought.
However, it turned out I had to create a new “child” network off my company network, because external groups were not available at that time. They are now, but your administrator can turn this off, so a child network may still be the only option available to you.
This has been a great learning experience since a child network has some peculiarities: it is different from a group (obviously), and also different from the company network.
So of course I am logging all the interesting things that I find as the project develops; for myself, my colleagues and for anyone else who is involved with external Yammer networks.
For the administrator:
The URL of your new network will be https://www.yammer.com/name so you are competing with all the world. Your desired name may already been taken, so have a few alternatives ready.
The person who creates the child network is automatically added as the (child) network administrator, with all the trimmings. If you do not like the idea that everyone in your organization can become a network administrator, you may want to limit the options to create child networks, and can decide to make this option available for the parent Yammer administrators only. (If you are a Yammer admin, go to Network Administration > External Networks)
You need to invite everyone with their email address; you can not use the existing network to select from.
Some companies do not allow their employees to join any external Yammer network, but need approval from their Yammer admin. This is a setting that lives in the same place as nr. 2.
This is a separate network, not a group, so people can create groups under this network. You can not turn this off.
The parent network has more administration settings and options than the child network. For instance, the “External Networks”, Ïnvite Guests” and “Account Activity” options are not available in the child network.
Part of the parent network admin settings.
For the users of your network:
You may want to inform them about this in a quick user guide. I have logged them in a Yammer Note on the All Company network.
Yammer notes are a good way to capture information for the group/network.
The new network will not be visible under My Groups; instead you have to navigate networks via the gear wheel next to your profile pic (bottom left at the moment of writing).
Since this is a separate network, you will have to refollow those people you want to follow.
You will also have to re-set your email notifications for this network
Make sure that you are on the correct page – you enter the default homepage but this is not the same as the All Company stream. (Which does not feel logical to me, but that can be me)
Have you found any other “gotcha’s” for Yammer external networks? Or have I got it wrong on some things? Please share!
I wish that Microsoft would create a Yammer training video whenever the interface changed. Yammer works exactly the same for all of us, so it would be nice if we all did not have to reinvent that wheel.
What differs between customers, apart from the masthead they use, is their reasons for using Yammer. This results in very interesting case-studies of the benefits Yammer can bring in that organization. I have already highlighted a few in my earlier post, and I will continue to add those to my collection.
But there are different themes for Yammer videos than demo’s or teasers.
This hilarious video from Virgin Trains tries to stimulate the use of Yammer Groups as opposed to the All Company Network.
By the way, their Yammer launch video (and the case study: getting an alpaca out of the train) is also worth watching!
And this set of 3 videos are about Community Management. They compare a Yammer Group to a party, with guidelines to match. I love the analogy, I love the characters, I love the warning at the beginning, and I want that Bat-device! 🙂
Part 1: Starting Out
Part 2: Managing and Maintaining
Part 3: Promoting and Expanding
Although the look-and-feel may not be suitable for use in every organization, the recommendations at the end of every video are solid and helpful for all of us who have a role in managing communities on Yammer (or other enterprise social networks, of course).
It’s discovering videos like these that make collecting intranet videos so much fun!
By the way, you can filter on “Yammer” in my collection to see all Yammer-related videos. And as always, please let me know if you know any good additions!
My latest post triggered the question:
“Do organizations create separate promotion or instruction videos for their Yammer rollout?”
Yes, they do.
So…they are now in my collection, tagged with Yammer.
I have found many that just demonstrate the standard functionalities. I think that is a waste of effort, since there are plenty of tutorial materials around.
Therefore I have focused on videos that are specific to an organization, that demonstrate how you can use Yammer within your team, with your specific issues. Those add real value, because demonstrating a case that people can relate to, is a good way to make people understand the benefits of Yammer.
These are my favourites:
Qantas
This is more like a teaser, informing catering employees how to use a specific Yammer group to collaborate with internal and external partners.
VerizonWireless
Tongue-in-cheek animation about project management in Yammer and the power of Yammer topics. I must admit that I was not aware of all functionalities of Yammer topics so I learned something new!
I am sure I will be adding to my collection over time. And as always, if you know another promotion video for my collection, please share the link!
At the Office 365 summit I learned about the Office365 Success Center. This contains tons of resources and planning tools to get your Office365 launch and adoption planned. I was quite happy about that because it means all those Microsoft/Office365 customers no longer have to reinvent all wheels themselves. (You know I hate that)
A Yammer implementation (Work like a network) I recently had the opportunity to do a Yammer implementation for a specific team so I was eager to test-drive the tool and share my experiences.
0. Access and sign-in.
Go to https://success.office.com/en-us and go to Adoption > Adoption Plan. My default Dutch version does not have the Adoption Plan options, so please add “en-us” to the URL.
How to create and access your plan.
After signing in, click on Create New, add title and description, and after saving the following screen is shown. (All progress bars are grey if you start)
You can see different steps with their progress. You set the progress yourself using the Save (in progress – blue) or Finish (finished – green buttons below every topic.
You open or close the item with the icon on the right of the section.
As you go along, you will also see many document-based templates on the left-hand side of the page, such as tips or templates for posters/flyers. This blog focuses on the online plan.
Progress Overview. You start with only grey boxes and you set the progress yourself.
1. Stakeholders.
You can select which roles are involved and add their names. You can also remove all roles not needed. In this case, we only had a few roles, but it was a useful exercise to note the names and responsibilities for everyone in the project team.
Adding the names to the roles.
2. Vision
The tool tells you to use ”1-4 sentences” but it is unclear exactly how many characters you can use. There is no warning when you exceed the character limit. In that case your data is simply not saved, or an older shorter version is saved.
Enter the Vision statement
Suggested improvements:
Add information about the # of characters allowed for the Vision. Show a warning when you are using more.
Make the Vision statement more useful, by e.g. prompting to check or revise the vision during creation of your plan. I understand that a tool like this can not tell you that “this action or metric is not in line with your vision”, but I would like to be prompted to review the vision or to check if your action plan will promote the vision.
3. Scenario
Next in line is the Scenario you are looking for. There are 5, and I chose “Work like a network”. You can then prioritize the scenarios, but we only had one so there was no need.
4. Success Metrics
Of course you have to measure if you are on plan. You get 6 examples, but you can add, edit and delete according to your own plans.
The examples were very useful for the exact wording of our metrics, but the display is a little odd 🙂
The Success Metrics section. Good content, but the display needs some work.
Suggested improvements:
In the plan, please improve the display of the texts – there is html in there (screenshot)
In the Snapshot, check display – many spaces between words are missing.
5. Activities
Selecting your Scenario filters the suggested Activities for your project. These contain a very complete overview of all possible actions during pre-launch, launch and post-launch, including a proposed timeline.
There were a few that we had not thought of and gladly included in our plan. There were also a couple that were not relevant for us, so we removed those.
Activities, grouped by Pre-Launch, Launch and Post-Launch.
Suggested improvements:
Replicate the names of the Stakeholders automatically into the Owner fields.
Explain what the square box does. (highlighted)
Replace “Office365” by “Yammer” in the Activities texts if you select the “Work like a network” scenario.
6. Snapshot
You can save and download a Snapshot (in Word) of your adoption plan, with all information you entered as well as a lot of explanation, tips etc. This turned out to be many pages (25 in our case for just 1 scenario!), and it also does not sort as in the plan.
I had to rework it (mainly removing all content that was not added/modified by ourselves) to make it into a concise actionable sharable plan.
The Snapshot is your total plan in a document
Suggested improvements:
Add an option to create one Snapshot per scenario. Success Metrics and Activities may be different for each scenario.
Remove the additional info from the Snapshot so you end up with a concise plan, preferably in Excel so it can be turned into a SharePoint Task List 🙂
Make Snapshot available as PowerPoint and/or Sway so it can instantly be presented and/or shared.
Check texts for consistency: e.g. the Stakeholders are called Project Members in the Snapshot.
Accept the comments in the first pages of the Snapshot.
Conclusion:
The concept is excellent. This tool and the templates will help you structure your adoption plan for the maximum chance of success, without having to invent everything yourself.
I have suggested some improvements mainly on the execution part. I expect Microsoft will be solving those soon. The current plan is already much better than when I used it a month or two ago.
Have you used this tool as well and if yes, what were your findings?
Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I was at SharePoint Connect in Amsterdam recently. It was great to meet some of my “fellow-nerds” again and I attended a number of great sessions by people whose blogs I have been following for some time. I noticed that the word “SharePoint” was used less frequently than the word “Office365”. As I sat there, I become more and more aware that my assumptions about Office365 were no longer valid. Office 365 = NOT online (Office + SharePoint).
When I started using Office365 in 2011 (mainly to make screenshots for my blog) it was pretty much SharePoint online and the standard online Office tools. I think Lync was part of the game as well, and that made perfect sense to me.
But now, Office365 feels as if many things have been added, the mix has been shaken up, and reorganized into something new. Yammer has pervaded into everything (good!) and it is starting to look and feel like an integrated set of business tools for the regular knowledge worker. May I use the word Digital Workplace? 🙂
My Office365 apps -an integrated toolset. Please note I have a “Small Business” subscription so I do not have all functionality.
I am so curious to see how this will evolve!
There are also a few things that bother me.
Small things Not that “View all site content’ is now at the bottom of the menu instead of at the top and being called “Site Contents”. Or that the Recycle Bin button is now on the top right. Those are merely annoying because I have to retrain my end users, just after telling most of them that their content lives in “View all site content” top left.
Not the fact that Lists and Libraries are now called Apps. It still makes me laugh every time I have to tell that to people!
Not the fact that the space-eating tiles are now sorted alphabetically without grouping, which makes it hard to find the “app” that you are looking for if you have many, like me. It amuses me that I have always thought that grouping “apps” by Libraries, Picture Libraries and Lists was silly, but now that my wish has been granted I do not like it either. 🙂
Bigger things
What bugs me is the fact that many things that cause issues will be harder to support now, because they are out of my control.
The creation of Groups from Outlook for instance. I know already that Groups will be created easily and abandoned as quickly. Whether that is because of the current lack of functionality in document management, or because projects will be completed and forgotten, I do not know yet. But I expect tons of potentially damaging content (should have been deleted but is not), will be lingering out there beyond the company’s control because it is in someone’s personal space.
I also expect issues with Sharing, because people are encouraged to share documents individually, by having that Share link in a very prominent place. It is even more prominent than editing properties or seeing version history.
Sharing an individual document with individuals is very (too) easy. The Share button is more prominent than e.g. View or Edit Properties, which are hidden behind the … The first “Edit” link means editing the document in Word, Excel etc.
I expect issues that I will not be able to solve at my own pace because I can not look into people’s Inbox and OneDrive, and I will have to guide people via Lync to check what the issue is. It will mean less email and more personal contact, which is nice. But “personal attention” is not always in accordance with current customer service theory 🙂
What really bugs me is that Microsoft has decided to launch unfinished products, and that you only have a few weeks to postpone any launch. I am not sure if we can be ready on time with governance, maintenance, knowledge and training if something really new or controversial is introduced.
What really really bugs me is that functionality may be changing very quickly, which may mean that investments you have made in training or solutions can be wasted if that functionality is retired. Or, worse, that my end users will not be able to keep up with the changes. They are experts in their own field and their digital workplace should support them, not challenge them every time with new functionality.
Personally I am very excited to work with this changed and changing environment. But please be aware that Office365 is no longer “an office suite” and “an intranet” that both happen to be hosted in the cloud. The offer has transformed into something new and you will really have to rethink everything: ownership, administration, governance, end user support, design, etc.
Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Just after publishing my last post, I found three interesting things that increase my belief that we are currently “deconstructing” the intranet and making it into something different.
Why is this important? Because it is often Internal Comms that has been the department that has introduced intranets to their employees as a communication tool for all the company. They have made sure intranets looked good, that people got training and that the corporate news got the best real estate on the homepage. 🙂
Most of them have realized that the intranet is no longer only a communication tool, but a tool to do your work. In that respect, it may be time to hand over the ownership of the intranet to a different part of the organization, and the digital workplace team may be the best candidate. They can take care of a proper technical installation, governance, training, app selection and development, usability etc. (which, incidentally, apart from the technical installation, are all things I really like to do :-))
If Internal Comms is no longer the owner of the intranet/digital workplace, it means that we can finally use that prime real estate for the most important work stuff, regardless of what that is. Perhaps we can also be less fanatic about design and branding, 🙂 and focus on usability.
But of course this is just one company. I have no idea if (m)any others will follow suit.
And then I found another intranet teaser video featuring a Windows 8 tile view with apps! This is the screenshot. (Please click to enlarge)
A screenshot from 19s into the video shows the desktop, with various apps. Source: http://vimeo.com/98925422
Once again, all kind of tools are displayed on the desktop and several elements from the intranet are there (news (in the centre – prime real estate!), time and weather, an HR app). But there appears to be no integrated website called “intranet”.
[Update October 17th, 2014: Unfortunately, the video was suddenly made private, so I removed the embedded link. I am glad I made that screenshot! ]
This feeds my theory that the “intranet” will be replaced by the individual building blocks of the intranet-as-we-have-come-to-know-it + other tools. I will call it the “deconstructed intranet” 🙂
This term has already been used earlier in a blog by Russell Pearson. I am not sure if he meant exactly the same thing though.
Is this the same as a Digital Workplace? I do not think so – this may be part of a Digital Workplace or a stage towards a Digital Workplace, but I think the Digital Workplace has more to it than just a set of tools.
Have you seen other examples of “deconstructed intranets”? I am ever so curious how this will develop!
Image courtesy of ponsulak at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I am posting this on the day that the Netherlands have a Day of National Mourning for the victims of the horrible MH17 airplane tragedy.
I have a reason to do that.
Many passengers were not only a partner, a family member or a friend, but also a colleague.
Recently I visited an intranet team who showed me how they use their internal social network to announce the passing away of a colleague, and to give everyone in the organization the opportunity to share their memories about that person.
Of course the immediate colleagues would be informed by their manager. Other employees had to rely on the printed newsletter, so they often learned quite late about the death of their colleague. In many cases, the funeral service had already taken place.
Since then, they have chosen to post the sad news on the social network, in a special “Obituaries’ group. The reactions have been overwhelmingly positive.
All employees are informed timely, and can attend the funeral service if they want to.
Many people value the opportunity to share their personal memories and stories about their colleague; the responses are many and long.
All reactions are collected and sent to the family, which is highly appreciated.
It draws people to the social network that normally do not go there.
Technology-wise it is quite straightforward: the main message is a copy of the printed card, with a picture of the colleague, a short message from management, and the reactions underneath. You can imagine it. It does not feel good to recreate screenshots.
I was very touched to see the internal social network being used for this purpose, it was new to me, and I wanted to share it. Perhaps you may need to deal with this one day. Perhaps even now…
My sincere condoleances to everyone who has lost a loved or liked one in this terrible event. My thoughts are with you.
So, you want to celebrate your new or revamped intranet with a video? Great idea! But what do you do and how do you go about it?
I am not an expert in video or in communication. I also do not know the purpose and effect any of the videos in my collection have had in its organization. Have they been broadcasted widely? Were there targets for intranet adoption, and if yes, what were they? Have targets been met and if yes, was that solely the video’s doing? I do not know.
Still, after seeing so many assorted videos, I think I can give you some tips:
If you have the budget, hire a professional. They have better equipment, more creative ideas and they will spend less time than yourself.
If you do not have money, prepare to spend time. You will have more to learn and more to practice, and most likely more to re-do as well.
Have you thought about making this an internal competition? You may have some talent in your organization that loves the opportunity to shine.
No budget? No competition? Time enough? OK, let’s go!
1. What is the story?
What do you want to say and what do you want to achieve?
2. What message type do you want to create?
A demo? A teaser? Something with a person? Do you want to amuse people or do you also want to teach them something?
3. What can you learn from others?
Global collaboration, 24/7 availability of content, access from anywhere, better document version control, one-stop-shop are frequently occurring themes in my video collection, so just borrow ideas from them. (especially the Animations have some nice visualizations of these topics)
4. Write a script and rehearse it.
Do not think you can improvise. You will need to write out the complete text, check it with others and rehearse it a few times. It will help you fine-tune the message and keep time.
5. Always review the end result critically and redo if it is not up to standard. Remember this is an important message for a large audience! And if you publish it on the intranet, you do not want to be included in my collection with some critical remarks. 🙂
6. Select the video type.
I would suggest one of the following options if you go for DIY.
Demo of the functionalities.
This can be done on your PC with Webex, Camtasia, Screenpresso, Lync or another screen recording tool.
Before you start, close down all other programmes, remove distracting popups like email or chat notifications, and turn off your phone.
Use a demo account so you do not have to reveal personal information on the internet.
Check with IT that they are not going to do software updates and mandatory reboots during your recording. (I have experienced that while giving a training for a worldwide audience…most annoying!)
Examples (mostly professional from the look of it) can be found in the videos tagged with “Demo”.
Talking head(s) video or interview.
This can be done with any good video camera.
Select someone who feels comfortable in front of a camera. Better have a manager who feels at ease in front of recording gear than the CEO if he or she does not feel comfortable – it shows!
Remove all clutter from the environment. Lots of personal belongings in the office, unpacked boxes in the background or a cluttered desk all distract from your message.
Rehearse the texts and project the words on a computer screen during recording, if possible.
Ask your actors to switch off their telephone or any other potential disturbance during the recording.
You may want to add in some screenshots or text slides for variety afterwards – just a talking head can be a little boring, especially if the video is more than 2 minutes.
Please check the videos tagged with “People” for inspiration. These are not all DIY-efforts, though.
Animation. There are various tools for that, such as Powtoon, Videoscribe, Explee, a recorded Prezi, a document camera, Moovly or PowerPoint-saved-as-movie. For iPads, there are YouTube Capture and Adobe Voice apps.
Now these tools all look very simple, and promise you that you will be able to create animations in an instant, even without any training, but please take that with a grain of salt. You will still need a concept, a message and a script, drawing or other visual talent, patience and a lot of time in making mistakes and doing iterations to get it right.
Check my Animations videos for ideas about common concepts such as 24/7, one version of the truth etc. You will also see a few Powtoon videos there, as well as very professional animations.
You may want to read StepTwo Designs’ article with more helpful tips for creating intranet videos as well.
1. Removed videos.
I have been really sorry to see that some great entries have been put behind a password on Vimeo so they are no longer publicly accessible.
2. Added new entries.
We are now at 86 items and I have more in the pipeline. I am adding them a few at a time for easy digestion. Follow me on Twitter or follow my collection if you would like to know when I have added new videos.
3. Tagged them.
All videos now have one or more of the following tags:
– Country (if relevant)
– Language
– Purpose (Demo, Teaser)
– Video type (Animation, Demo, People, Movie (= something obviously scripted and composed))
You can now create your own selection by clicking “Find” on the top of the list and then selecting a tag.
You can filter for language, country, business etc.
Would you please let me know if you have another tag suggestion or would like to correct a mistake? I know my tagging will not be 100% complete or correct, so your feedback is welcome.
What can you do with these?
Watch and enjoy
Use as inspiration for your own intranet launch or promotion – remember to share the result! 🙂
Let me know when you find a new one or want to add/change tags
Spread the word (ellenvanaken.video gets you there quickly)
Write about them!
My collection has already been featured in several posts:
All very good blogs, so while you are there, please read some other posts as well!
What’s next? Of course I will keep adding new videos. Next time, I will share some of my takeaways. But if you would like to beat me to that, please be my guest 🙂 !
Blogging by senior management appears to be an ongoing struggle. I wrote about it earlier and remarked that it is not for everyone.
Some weeks ago I offered a project team to create a Yammer group. It was a team with a lot of externals, so it had to be an external group. Or so I thought.
I wish that Microsoft would create a Yammer training video whenever the interface changed. Yammer works exactly the same for all of us, so it would be nice if we all did not have to reinvent that wheel.
Ellen's Digital Workplace 