Social Collaboration Challenge Report
By Alexandra Brunell, Deanna Grunfeld and Nan Yu
Social Collaboration Challenge Report
Brunell, Grunfeld and Yu Company Overview
Name
International Business Machines Corporation
Our Contact / Title
Kailey Griffith / Web and Social Media Strategist
Industries served
Computer hardware, Computer software, IT services, IT
consulting
Geographic areas served
Worldwide
Headquarters
U.S.
Current CEO
Ginni Rometty
Revenue
$92.8 billion (2014)
Employees
379,592​
(2014)
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Social Collaboration Challenge Report
Brunell, Grunfeld and Yu Use of ​
enterprise social networking
IBM, the world’s second-largest technology company, has ​
379,592​
employees. Therefore, it
​
is impossible to keep the internal communication face-to-face. In order to ensure
cross-company collaboration and maintain effective communication flow between all
segments of the corporation, IBM has chosen to utilize the popularity of social media and
social networking platforms to improve communication among its employees. They have
been using many different social networking platforms, such as the own developed
software application IBM Connections, employees are brought together, allowing them to
easily communicate and collaborate with each other through a variety of social
collaboration tools – no matter where in the world they’re located.
Analysis of Challenges
One of the main uses for IBM Connections is to streamline communication between
coworkers. The platform aims to make everything available to everyone, while having
every resource in one place. Additionally, it wants to create an area where people can talk
to everyone, whether its upper management, or people across the country, making it
simpler to communicate.
However, much of this ends up becoming counter intuitive. Because of the platform in
place, Connections tries to be too much, which ends out creating an impersonal interface.
For instance, workers are trained to rely on it for all their needs, but then don’t feel the
need to go out and actually talk with their fellow workers in person. If everything can be
done “faster” online, why put in the effort to go out more?
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Social Collaboration Challenge Report
Brunell, Grunfeld and Yu Sample IBM Connections Page
Additionally, the image above of a sample Connections Page shows how there is a lot going
on. There are filled tabs to the left bar, and also a multiple full tab bar on top. With so many
option, IBM Connections truly tries to be it all and it can easily be overwhelming for its
users.
“It [IBM Connections] is similar to every social network combined” - Kailey Griffith while
describing IBM Connections via phone call to us.
A look at what Connections aims to do similar to other social networks:
1.
Facebook: Each employee has their own profile page which includes their own
information, a wall where people can write things, and their contact information.
Additionally, there are communities where people can share their interests,
pictures, videos, and/or discuss specific topics.
2.
Google Drive/Microsoft Office: Connections has their own version similar to Google
Drive where employees can upload documents and share them with each other,
making real time collaboration possible.
3.
Calendar/ Mail: Fast mail and calendar keep it simple for workers to stay informed
and communicate with co-workers and well as be on top of their assignments/
schedules.
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Social Collaboration Challenge Report
Brunell, Grunfeld and Yu 4.
Wikis/ Blogs: Here, employes can present ideas to each other, get opinions from
others, and share and create content.
From a large view, IBM Connections seems like a great solution to every work need, since
all an employee has to do is simply to go onto the one site to get it all. However, as touched
upon above, it overall becomes way too much. On IBM Connections’ website, they list over
14 features that their social network has to offer, which is great. But what incentive does
this sent out to their employees? If I can access everything online, why would I care to
actually bond in person with my co-workers, or even come in to the office and have real
time and in-person discussions that often can be very valuable?
This websites business makes the office a more impersonal place, which can lead to huge
downsides in the feature. Additionally, this assumes that most collaboration is done better
virtually. While an argument can be made that it is more efficient that way, there is some
value to the old fashion way. Sometimes ideas are developed better when they are done in
person, or in organized meetings with your known colleagues. When co-workers establish
a more personal relationship, their work ethics often also increase since they feel more
responsible toward each other. Therefore, trying to do it all, leads to a bigger issue of
becoming too impersonal, and the problems that arise from there.
The Big Picture
As previously mentioned, IBM has almost half of a million employees. Therefore, using the
enterprise social networking system is the best way to achieve quick internal
communication within the company. However, with the complication of IBM Connections, it
is hard for all the employees to adapt into such complex platform. Since the ultimate goal is
to make the employees to use Connections as the primary communication tool on a daily
base, its complicated functions could discourage them to further practice using
Connections. Therefore, IBM should make Connections simpler and easier to use, while still
not taking away value from working in-person with others. 5
Social Collaboration Challenge Report
Brunell, Grunfeld and Yu Recommendations
To address the problems we outlined above, we tried out Connections ourselves and
reported back how we felt with it. We were able to come back with similar issues as well as
some recommendations to face those. The issues we are aiming to tackle are the platforms
“busyness” and impersonalness.
The first way we want to approach the complexities of the site is to get a better
understanding of how the employees feel about this issue as well. We recommend that IBM
start to collect certain data that tracks their employees’ enterprise social media usage,
which will enable them to analyze the data and see what age group is using what kind of
functions within Connections. By doing so, it would be easier to identify the big drawback,
which will make it simpler for IBM to know where to put the most effort and start working
on improvements of the network.
Another way to tackle the intricate interface is to provide customization. This is the key to
offer the employees a better experience using IBM Connections. IBM should add in a
customization feature to Connections, through which the employees can customize their
own Connections page. If users can control which tools are displayed on a specific location
on the Connections page, it would provide them a better control over the activity streams
and widgets. Therefore, it would be much easier for the employees to use this platform.
To face our second issue of Connections becoming an impersonal platform, we suggest
establishing Connections to be used within teams and units. This will enable collaboration
on an enterprise level as well as an in-person, social level.
Let’s outline a simple scenario to exemplify how this would ideally work. Let’s say you have
around 15 people all around contributing to a platform discussion on a particular topic.
While all this is done virtually, the ideas are slowly growing more and more as people are
commenting and contributing to each other.
However, lets say that instead IBM worked on making groups of around 3-5 people who
collaborate in person on an idea. They bounce ideas quickly off each other, until they post
their best and most recent findings. Then other groups comment and contribute with their
best as well.
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Social Collaboration Challenge Report
Brunell, Grunfeld and Yu This solution creates a two fold effect. First off, the idea is developed at a much faster pace.
The best thoughts are getting posted and are worked upon. Secondly, the employees have
now worked in person with each other. They know who their coworkers are and worked
with them in a beneficial way, creating a person bond.
Final Thoughts
Overall, IBM Connections has been an interesting website to analyze. While there is much
success with the site and the site has a lot of potential, it was intriguing to see that not all of
it was perfect. We hope our analysis and recommendations will help and can be used for
future improvements within the network with the company, and we are looking forward to
seeing how IBM Connections will develop in the future.
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