What would be considered success in our Conversation Network

Well let me first start with a simple example. What would I consider success for our VP’s Blog. If he walks down the hall and more people approach him to talk to him because he seems more approachable and they feel like they know a little about him from his blog, then I think this is success. When they tell him ideas or give him information that he wouldn’t have gotten elsewhere then it will be measurable success. It will go up from there after some time passes.

For the our Conversation Network, the same kind of thing is true but in much larger capacity. After a couple of months after roll out, we should start to see online discussion with people from different environments and different walks of life. This in itself is success as it is starting to build a corporate consciousness … an appreciation for the diversity in our company and a glimpse of the limitlessness of our human resources. It doesn’t matter what the topics are at this stage … just the fact that people from different parts of the company are talking. There is some success in a person here knows that a person way over there shares the same interest even if on different sides of a discussion. This provides more opportunity for potential contacts in the near future when a person is faced with something that they will need help on. Even if the person that they know isn’t versed in the topic they need help in, this contact may still know of another.

About 3 – 4 months after roll out we should see some of the more adventurous people starting to talk about very interesting perspectives of business topics that couldn’t have happened in any other way … it could be about topics that would never have come up or with people that would never have been invited. Any one of these could lead to progress of thought that could completely pay for the whole enchilada.

What is success for social topics like “covered parking” or 401K investments … we should start to see the outliers on the different sides of a controversial topic come together more toward a middle ground building a consensus. This is success … arguing through all sides of an issue that others can read later helps others from wasting time on it since everything that can be said and argued, has. This also builds a corporate consciousness for this subject. This, in a way, is a social bonding of what it is to be a worker in our company and how we should think about stuff. This should also be considered a level of success.

About 8 months after roll out we should see a lot of people buzzing even if they are not contributing. We should see real topics addressed by the forward thinkers who have found other forward thinkers in our company. The speed of information flow increases and the strata of control starts to dissolve as people get real-time pertinent information directly from contributors as opposed to through 2 – 3 levels of intervening staff. Remember before and after email was introduced in our company … information flow accelerated rapidly and whole communication “networks” collapsed as new more direct information channels were formed. We start to evolve and form overlay virtual teams that address problems quicker and with less bureaucracy. Now this is the next level of success that everyone will recognize.

About a year after roll out, you should see about 35% of the people have an online presence and another 50% are listening/lurking. Now people don’t even talk about this being a success, but rather, just a more connected way of doing business. Just like we don’t talk about email and its enabling capabilities anymore. The company top-to-bottom side-to-side seems to know and understand what we are about, what we are after, and what kind of citizen composes our company. The company seems to be more engaged and even the support groups are engaged and on the front lines with the businesses. This is the kind of success we pay company advisers millions to re-energize the company. But wait there is more …

According to Chuck Hollis of EMC, GE is a company who wrote their own tools and started this journey almost 10 years ago. He now feels his company at one year after introduction to be in the child stage compared to GE. Maybe we should have GE come give us a pep talk later on.

My information for these scenarios I’ve discussed is based on extensive reading in behavior modification and examples of community on the outside. I am a member of an online community of 1200 (500 very active) that started with interest in the Mercedes car but now has every kind of person and every kind of skill set imaginable … lawyers, doctors, every kind of researcher and scientist, inventors and yes, even mechanics. They have a common passion together but a universe full of others. They help each other in all kinds of dilemmas and are able to accomplish extraordinary things. The pipelines of communication to almost every part of the globe is astonishing … all because we shared a common interest to start.

So measure success by looking at the company’s energy and its ability to form passions world wide … the money will follow.