This week I have been attending WOMMA’s School of WOM in Chicago. The conference started on Monday and wraps up today. There have some great keynotes, workshops, and breakout sessions. I’d estimate roughly that there are about 300 attendees.
On Monday, Susan Emerick of IBM (@sfemerick), Chris Boudreaux of Converseon (@cboudreaux) and I presented during a breakout. Our presentation, “Enabling the Social Workforce” discussed how IBM has been able to enable thousands of employees to participate in social media. At IBM, employees are such an extension of our brand and it is important that IBMers represent our brand in the social media.
Most businesses are finding it challenging to mobilize employees in social media on behalf of the brand. For years prior to the social media explosion, IBM had focused on enabling IBMers to collaborate internally via collaboration tools. As social media took off on the public Internet, IBM has, in turn, successfully enabled thousands of employees to participate in the social media conversation.
The presentation (loaded on slideshare and then embedded below) discusses how IBM advances the goals of the business while growing the professional influence of the employee. The key to enablement for IBM is focusing on empowering the workforce to communicate their strategic expertise socially. Our presentation and the Q&A session afterwards covered important program elements like
- Developing the Digital Strategy Model
- Publishing and Communicating Social Media Guidelines
- Developing a Social Computing Curriculum that includes certification-based training
- An Expertise Locator system that helps aid in the search and discovery of IBM experts
- IBM’s Centennial Program that enables social conversations.
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