Posts Tagged ‘Strategy’

Save time by making it easy for users to contribute

January 5, 2009

One of the advantages of my position at GroupSwim is I help lots of customers plan and roll-out their sites. I get to observe what works and what doesn’t work. I’ve noticed an easy strategy that helps people collaborate effectively – using very specific group names to guide people on where to post discussions, documents or wikis.

I know this sounds simple but it isn’t. For example, if I’m creating a collaboration site for a professional services project, I might use these groups:

  1. Project Management Meeting Notes
  2. Executive Interview Results
  3. Technical Infrastructure Issues
  4. Gruntmaster 2000 Training Documents

Instead of:

  1. Project Planning
  2. Technical
  3. Training

I see this over and over again where customers using specific groups like the first list see significantly higher volume and more value than those using groups like the second list. There is a psychological barrier that people need to overcome when using a collaboration tool like GroupSwim. It is so easy to fall back into the habits of using email or nothing at all. What I’m observing is if you are proscriptive in how you want employees or customers to collaborate, they will respond. I’m not saying limit their options. If they want to create additional groups and collaborate more, by all means turn them loose. However, when getting things started, the more specific you can be, the better results you will achieve.

The first list is a good example of internal collaboration; it is the same thing with external customer collaboration. One of our clients created an external community and the groups they use are very detailed. They don’t just go by products, but have different groups for specific modules. They also have groups for roles and technologies. What this does is make it very easy for users to see where they should post content. EVERYTHING we do to encourage collaboration should remove friction from the process. This is one very easy way to do it. It reminds me of a golf swing; if you set-up correctly over the ball with the proper grip and alignment, you have a higher probability of hitting a great shot. The same thing holds true for collaboration. If you structure your groups and tools correctly, you have a higher probability of achieving great results.

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Challenges Marketing a Flexible Solution

June 3, 2008

We are in the process of refreshing our website, sales materials, presentation for Enterprise 2.0 (more posts on that later) and find ourselves in an interesting situation.  Our product provides value for many different economic buyers.  For example, it is great for sales teams, professional services, marketing, customer support, external customers, etc.; you get the picture.  It isn’t easy describing and marketing a solution to such a wide constituency of groups who all have different business issues, every day problems, compensation plans, and the like.  It is a conundrum (I try to use this word once a day if I can pull it off) because you don’t want to describe your offering so broadly that it doesn’t resonate with problems people are facing in their business or customer lives.  On the flip side, you don’t want to focus so keenly on one group that you ignore and potentially miss others.

Our plan is to focus on one internal group for our collaboration product and one for our Forums product for customer collaboration, nail those, and then take what we’ve learned and start adding other groups.  The product features and solution will still cover all types of groups, so this is more about how we market and to whom.

Seems logical.  What do you think?

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Can you force collaboration?

February 19, 2008

I find myself asking this question all the time when I talk with customers. Almost any executive or manager you could find will tell you they want their teams to collaborate more. However, how do you “make” it happen? I think a combination of the following factors needs to be in place:

1. Incentives – Bake some kind of MBO (management by objective) or goal into employee’s compensation plans for collaboration. The trick is to make it quantifiable. I’ve seen measures like number of new employees Q&A sessions hosted per quarter, number of questions answered in a collaboration tool like GroupSwim, number of knowledge objects (i.e. white papers, FAQs, etc.) contributed, and number of hours spent mentoring other employees. Measuring collaboration isn’t impossible but it isn’t easy and does require forethought and effort.

2. Tools – Provide the right tools for people to collaborate. If employees and teams can work together and share knowledge as they do their work, they will do it happily. Effectively collaborating can even be fun and intrinsicly rewarding. However, if the collaboration tool or process is too unwieldy or takes time out of their daily tasks, knowledge workers won’t do it.

3. Recognition – Recognize collaboration in a couple of ways. First, definitely highlight community members who excel. Giving these folks props not only makes them feel good and more inclined to do more, it shows other members of the community that they too can get recognized if they step up. Second, highlight how the groups’ collaboration efforts have benefited the group, company and/or customers. Tangible examples give people ideas on doing more and helps them understand that collaboration isn’t a waste of time.

Do you think there are other factors to consider? Have you seen collaboration mandated in the past, and if so, what worked and what didn’t? How do you force collaboration?

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Posted in Community, Enterprise, Methodology, Strategy | 2 Comments »

Roll out the welcome mat

October 8, 2007

There is one important thing we all need to do when starting a new community – roll-out the welcome mat. An on-line community has the same needs as any group when it gets started. The new group members must feel welcome and involved and the earlier the better. When a user gets invited to a group, you have one opportunity to make a first impression. We suggest putting time into the email, marketing campaign, and/or advertising you are using to recruit new members. In this communication, you should definitely explain the purpose of the group and what the members hope to get out of it. People aren’t likely to stay engaged or even try a group if they aren’t sure why they are going there.

Here are some tactics to consider once a user joins a group:

  1. If you can track it, send them a personal email after they log into the site for the first time welcoming them.
  2. Send them an email or note after they’ve posted their first contribution. Make it a point to comment on whatever they wrote and tell them how unique or useful it was. Or, make sure you or someone in the community responds to their first post. Studies have shown that there is a statistically higher chance someone will come back to a community if their first post was noticed.
  3. Follow-up with them 2 weeks after they join to make sure they are happy.

If you employ any or all of these tactics, you are more likely to create a successful, vibrant on-line community.

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