To Blog? Or To Wiki? - Week 5 Activity

So we've discussed how a printing organization uses Enterprise 2.0. We've talked about how a motor company uses Enterprise 2.0. So what about a organization that provides scientific research? 

One of the biggest and well known scientific research organization which has made use of Blogs and Wikis is the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). They were once known as the Advisory Council of Science and Industry when they were originally formed in 1926 and have made many notable inventions like aerogard and Wi-Fi.

CSIRO have their own Blog site and Wiki site. The scientists there use their blog site to talk about anything scientific but mainly, to get the word out about things you would not generally hear on TV or any where else really. Thus, they are trying to get the word out about the on going research being done by their company and release information so the public can comment on their processes and increase awareness.  Such blogging and sharing of information defines the demand forecasting lever of the operations and distributions of the value chain. An example of one of their blogs is titled 'Ghostbusting in the Gulf' which explains how debris in the ocean are affecting the marine life and CSIRO research to pin point a solution. This example makes the reader want to support the cause and become more aware of the issues out their and thus giving CSIRO bonus points to their reputation.

CSIRO Wiki page is a place to learn workplace procedures and protocols as well as the general organizations architecture. Just like any wiki, it is open to the public to read and edit and add. The page itself is still incomplete, however, it is a good place to collaborate between internal and external users. From the McKinsey Global Institute report, this would be an example of the 9th value lever which is defined as intra- or inter organizational collaboration and communication via the use of social technologies. CSIRO wiki page enhances their business by allowing to everyone to work on similar topics, reduces time on searching and communicating with other team members. This also leads to thought leadership and therefore individual reputation boosts which can be seen as a Marketing lever as it makes the business look more professional and open for further partnerships.

Both sites focus on collaboration and communication between all users which is how these social tools enhance CSIRO's business. So which profession do you think benefits the most from these social tools? Thank you for reading!

Ford Benefitting From Value Levers - Week 4 Activity

Many success stories have come from organisations implementing Enterprise 2.0. For example Alcatel-Lucent had 60% of employees collaborating on the new platform to be easier and Yum! cut the time to release international menus from 18 months to 4 months. Such results come from the understanding of 10 Social Technology value levers published by McKinsey Global Institute in 2012.

One of the many organisations who have benefited from these value levers are the Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Michigan in the United states. They manufacture and distribute across 6 continents with about 164 000 employees producing the Ford and Lincoln brand.

The Ford motor company have implemented Enterprise 2.0 with their FordSocial website, Flickr and YouTube accounts which fall under the marketing and sales segment of the value chain. The first value lever of this segment is deriving customer insights which is exactly what the FordSocial is made for. This website allows Ford users to express their story and their experience with their Ford vehicle. There is also an ideas section which is simply their for motor enthusiasts who may have liked a certain design or want something extra from Ford. These are ways of understanding the community and the best way to expand on ideas and create objects that Ford already know the customers will like. 

Ford also has a Flickr and Facebook account for users to upload images of their Ford vehicle which is a form social commerce. Ford uploads images of the latest designs and upcoming work onto their Flickr account to capture the people's eyes and to sell their brand. They encourage the community to do the same for example, someone may upload their image with their new Ford vehicle and tag the Ford brand or like the Facebook page. The use of photos and tagging is a great way to attract new viewers and draw in existing audiences to the Ford Website. Liking the Facebook page also shows which friends have done so and can create common interests.

From what we can see, Ford makes full use of social technologies to sell their product and to give the brand the friendliest image to the community. By marketing their brand online, Ford is able to give customers deeper knowledge of their products and can make use of customer feedback for future designs. On another note, a customer of Ford wanted them to produce a mobile app, what do you think? Yay or nay?

Thanks for reading!

Same Objective, Just Different Social Tools. - Week 3 Activity

After many clicks and skim reading, I've come to realize how big it is for businesses to apply enterprise 2.0 strategies. I say this because the little guys are now able to talk to the head honchos removing the middle-man and the general hierarchy that we once understood. How do they do this you may ask? With social media of course... And many other processes... But our focus today is how these organizations have successfully incorporated social tools to expand their business.

Our first example is Vistaprint, a business which provides a printing service for all your printing needs and one which has filled my junk mail. They have achieved the enterprise 2.0 objective of staff engagement with the use of the wiki platforms, a website made for the community, used by the community and edited by the community, and Intuit, a problem solving business which created a brainstorming platform.

Their initial issue was that Vistaprint had no proper way of managing information. With a staff of approximately 80 staff, public folders, shared drives and blogging platforms were not enough. They then met another issue as the business started expanding and more engineers were required, the problem of training 75 engineers in a short period without breaking the software. By analyzing these issues, they eventually found the drive to implement Enterprise 2.0.

There answer was to incorporate an enterprise wiki by creating articles with just a title and leaving it as a blank page. This allowed employees to work on and edit freely on different sections which came out as better quality work and better timelines. This cut the training time by 50% which came to about 4-6 weeks where we all know time is money. They then came to answer the issue of managing information by using a brainstorming platform by Intuit. This allowed employees to share and innovate which meshed smoothly within the companies existing culture as this was one of their strong points. 

Another business example is McDonalds, one of the biggest fast food restaurants, have achieved the same goals as above through staff engagement with the use of blogging and a feedback Awareness platform. A senior executive of McDonalds struggled to communicate with a large number of employees in the organization. 

To resolve this issue, he turned to blogging, one for employees only and one for customers only. By creating two sets of blogs specific to the readers, it allowed employees to share information and ideas as well comment on subjects making it a two way flow. The blog specific towards customers was a community blog called Open for Discussion. This was essential to the business as it was a good source of customer feedback and it also gave the customer feel like they made a difference and encouraged them to participate in the community.

From both businesses, the key enterprise 2.0 objective was staff engagement. Both businesses allowed their to be a two-way communication disregarding any form of hierarchy. This allowed more ideas to flow in in less time. We can also see that by allowing communication between different status levels will bring forth different types of opportunities. This could be creating new product, leading a team to manage company objectives and so on. All this collaborative work and the concept of community creates a better atmosphere for the organization and can only result in positive outcomes.

In regards to the Wikinomics business models, both business clearly show each step. For peering, both VistaPrint and McDonalds created opportunities for the community to have their say about ideas and products with the use of blogs and other social platforms. For ideagoras, VistaPrint a wiki was created for anyone and everyone to gather to exchange ideas and solutions. Lastly, for prosumers, McDonalds Open for Discussion platform made the consumers the producers as it gave them the chance to talk about what the next themes and products should be.

Thanks for your time. Let me know what you think about any of the above and see you soon.