The inefficacy of a top-down model when trying to manage a groundswell movement within a company is an issue Li & Bernoff tackle in Chapter 11 of Groundswell. Most of what we have read and talked about so far has been how a company can use the groundswell to actively engage with their customer and use it as a marketing tool. But what the authors seek to do in this chapter is to impress upon their readers the importance of using the groundswell to also energize employees.
Many
companies around the world are starting to adopt the idea of creating an
internal social network for their employees to help with communication. “Some of these applications came from
management and others began as skunk-works projects, but what they have in
common is this: they tap the power of the groundswell of ideas among the people
who know best how your business runs, your employees” (Groundswell, pg.
216). However, for these internal social
networking opportunities to take root and flourish, they must evolve
organically. “You can’t force them [employees]
to adopt groundswell thinking, any more than you can convince reluctant
managers to deploy social technologies with your customers” (Groundswell, pg.
230-231).
To
illustrate the concept of an internal social networking site at work in a large
company, consider Nokia, a worldwide mobile phone producer. According to simply-communicate.com
Nokia has three main uses of social media to connect with all employees in a
less “top-down model”: BlogHub, VideoHub and Infopedia. On the site Conversations by Nokia
they offer a timeline of their internal social media efforts.
In a 2011 interview for Conversations by Nokia,
Tiina Jaatinen, Senior Communications Specialist, Social Media, spoke about the
importance of all Nokia’s employees having a place to have a voice and quickly
share with everyone else. This is why
BlogHub became of vital importance to the company. With over 1400 active blogs and 100,000+ comments,
Nokia is assured its employees, who each have an internal blog, they have a
constantly evolving stream of work and ideas (Conversations by Nokia). This is what Li & Bernoff where
presenting with the case study looking at Blue Shirt Nation, the
internal site for Best Buy employees.
The authors end their
book urging their audience to remember social media is ever-changing and
constantly evolving. But if companies do
not focus on forming relationships with their customers, they will never be
able to reap the benefits social media can provide, both inside and out.
