Real-Time Economy Community - New ideas

Social Media Challenge finalists selected

Tuija LompolojÃ€rvi — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:43:12 GMT

Thank you all for the 40 ideas we received for Social Media Challenge! There were many great ideas submitted and it was hard to narrow it down to final five.

The following ideas were selected to the final round:

1) Mihael Cankar & Laura Turkki - Improve service processes with peer-to-peer tweets
2) Marja Käpyaho - Dynamic Support Tree
3) Jaakko Jäätmaa - Scrum-based social networking service
4) Miika Perä - Distributing incentives and resources by social graph and organizational data layers
5) Evgeny Paradeev - User-generated systems

The objective of the final round of this competition is to give students the possibility to present their idea in greater detail to the judges. The finalists have been contacted.

The winning idea will be announced in the beginning of December.

Corporate Facebook

Eemeli MetsÃ€ntÃ€hti — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:12:56 GMT

Ville Hallavo- Student, HSE

Eemeli Metsäntähti- Student, HSE

Social media relies on voluntary usage, which is also the hardest part of designing new tools. Therefore, our main theme is creating a social media tool that would be adopted not through forcing but pure inner motivation of its users. Our suggestion is to design the corporate social media tool on the Facebook platform, as a mash-up of other useful applications listed below (idea being that daily work is performed on the platform):

- Knowledge sharing, creation and management

o Database of documents (ppt,doc,xls – tags)

o Projects organized in FB-groups (tags, best practices, can be searched, different corporate levels)

o Like/dislike or such rating (projects, documents, any content)

o Applications/games/simulations to generate new ideas/knowledge

o RSS feed news

o Article/book bank (Gartner, Forrester, tags)

- Decision making

o FB-questionnaires (data/consensus creation, innovations)

o Collaborative decision making (demand forecasting, Delphi method, conflict resolution, risk assessment)

- Project management

o Doodle (meetings)

o Google docs

o Tags (skills, projects)

o Project comparison (incentives, competitiveness)

o Budgeting

- Daily routines

o Calendar (FB-invitations)

o Online service desk (booking premises, train tickets)

o ”You might also be interested in this” (Amazon)

o Widgets (Mac Dashboard, calculator, feeds)

o Email integrated (efficiency, Google Wave, threads)

o Dictionary & spell check

o Speach recognition, voice memos

- Networking & communication

o Interest groups

o Live chat & conferencing (Skype

- Human resources

o Ratings system for employees (recommendations)

o Team generation (skills tagged, CV-bank, worker profiles, like/dislike ratings)

o Career development (interest profiles, career paths -> assignment to trainings & projects)

- Sense of community

o Wiki, Blogs

o Podcasts

- Information integration

o Company ERP integration

o Supplier evaluation

- Incentives

o Salary bonuses (activity, like/dislike, recommendations

o User interface customization

- Organization structure

o Social network mapping (organize processes and company organizational structure accordingly)

Collaboration Network Application for companies.

Anssi Kaija — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:41:10 GMT

Currently mostly every single company has intranet, which contains information of various kinds i.e. company news, employee directory, training material etc. The same companies have different platforms/tools for project work and other similar activities. The problem with these systems is that they are usually very complex to find information, scattered and difficult to use - anti-user-friendly in other words.

The very same issues apply to the customer and supplier side. Many companies have some kind of systems in place, where they interact with their suppliers as well as customers. However in my opinion interaction is the wrong word to be used in this context as it remains on superficial level. It can be inferred from previously mentioned that there is room for a totally new kind of approach that integrates the company internally as well as externally to all of its interest groups. This kind of supply chain wide network application increases collaboration and thus enhances all the activities and tasks performed in the included companies.

The solution should be a web-based application; kind of like ERP-system and merged in social media (such as Facebook) with the difference that it truly integrates all the company departments and the whole supply chain including suppliers and customers as well as the shareholders into a single easy-to-use network application. Communication both internally and externally would be handled with Messenger like application that enables both talking and chatting as well as conferences, all with video possibility.

The network would consist of four overlapping dimensions: the company, customers, suppliers and shareholders. They all would be basically using the same interface with different access policy. In the company context the system would work similarly as intranet and ERP, but everything would be merged into one application where e.g. information and data would be shared, projects managed, manufacturing controlled etc. External communication between suppliers and customers would be of course two-way lane. Sourcing department would communicate with suppliers and place orders in the systems. In the other end customers would be able to place orders, track them and give feedback to sales department. This kind of two-way communication would also generate valuable data to marketing and make it possible to post e.g. customer surveys or such and get the data immediately into the system. The application would also make possible a better communication with the finance department and shareholders. All in all the solution would put everything under the same roof and would be a true move towards boundary breaking collaboration and real-time information.

Security issues could be tackled using a cloud computing-based approach, which would basically mean that application and data are stored on servers and the users would be operating with “dummy-terminals”. This would enable the necessary mobility and free working from time and place. A problem however remains how to get companies and people to change the culture and adopt this kind of approach, which would no doubt benefit all in many ways (may it be cost savings, efficiency, accuracy or increased profit margins).

Does your boss tweet? - Cartoon

Olga Kuznetsova — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:00:42 GMT

I\ve just found this cartoon http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-10-04/

Enjoy!

Social Media and Investor Relations

Jaakko JÃ€Ã€tmaa — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:55:14 GMT

Problem: The management of investor relations is a vital business process in all public companies. Current and potential investors are company's key interest groups and communication and interaction with them should be fast, fluent, diversified. Regardless of these facts, there seems to be at the moment very little true social interaction between the companies and the financial community. Instead of two-way communication, or interaction, companies primarily use methods of mass communication or broadcasting to manage their key relationships.

Proposition: Companies should start to utilize tools of social media in their investor relations processes. Companies must change their investor relation strategy to more relationship oriented and select modern instruments to support this process.

Implementation: Companies should implement tools like blogs, micro blogs, mashups, syndication, podcasts, instant messaging and discussion boards in their investor relation services. The nature of the services in the Internet should be Web 2.0. Communications should be real-time and agile instead of quartal based. A totally new kind of culture of collaborative information sharing and relationship building should be introduced. In general, interactivity should be the guiding element in everything

Value: The usage of social media tools in investor relations can effectively create new value to investors, which thereby create value to companies. Also the media definitely would appreciate this kind of movement. In the long run, the more social and collaboratiove nature of investor relations processes can change the behavior and working culture in the whole financial community and e.g reduce problems related to information asymmetry.

Extreme Makeover: Company Edition

Jussi Tarvainen — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:06:39 GMT

There are companies that have used social media tools for years. However, some companies are still relying on old and inefficient communication methods. Especially large companies have complicated processes and organizational structures, which may seem overwhelming for a new employee. Finding a right person is difficult via an incomplete personnel directory. Documents and presentations are stored on laptop hard drives, e-mail boxes, or document storage partitions that are only available for a small group of employees.

In order to make everyday work more efficient and support a culture of can-do (find it, don’t ask for it and edit-it yourself) companies should start to use the following three social media tools.

Diplopedia is a collection of department-wide wikis. Department wiki allows anyone in the department to instantly share his or her knowledge and receive support from others, no matter where individual employees are situated. It can be used to distribute various kinds of information such as workflows and past, present, and future projects. Diplopedia also provides a great way to find out what is going on in other departments.

ComBlog - a Company Blog – is an open discussion channel for all personnel regardless of rank or specialty. ComBlog is used for sharing thoughts and opinions of interesting things (e.g. emerging opportunities and threads related to company’s core business). It is also the main channel for company management to distribute relevant information for employees.

Vipectory is a visual personnel directory. It utilizes novel web technologies to provide a great interface to look at organization charts and employee details. In addition, employees can add more information of themselves (e.g. competence areas, work tasks, past projects). This information is used to create a visualization that shows employee’s closest colleagues and links to other teams and departments. Vipectory has also a free text search that provides an efficient way to find the right people.

Customer Communities: Social Customer Service and Product Development

Jaakko JÃ€Ã€tmaa — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:29:53 GMT

Problem: Companies claim to be customer oriented but in truth they fail to be truly and effectively near their customers.

Proposition: The power of the social media and the Internet should be utilized by building customer communities dedicated for sharing answers, ideas and solutions. Public customer community would be an open place where customers and employees of a company could meet and share information.

Implementation: Customer community should be implemented to the web and be easily accessible by anyone. It should offer tools (at least) for the following actions: asking questions, reporting problems and sharing ideas. Company should employ dedicated personnel who monitor the activities in the community by answering customers' messages and actively participating in discussion e.g. by commenting new product development ideas. Company should also enhance loyalty by e.g. rewarding the most productive members, sharing exclusive information or organizing competitions - in general, having fun with customers.

Value: Several operational benefits arise: Extension of customer support beyond traditional call centers and e-mailing. Cost-effective way to answer growing customer population (the ratio of new customer servants to new customers is no more linear). The productivity of an individual customer servant is increased exponentially as the given answers are re-usable and remain viewable to everybody - also repetitive issues decline. Response times increase. Company quickly starts getting better and faster product feedback and more accurate and innovative ideas for product development as the customers themselves know their needs best. Community can be integrated into products as a value-added service.

Strategically, the key issue is customer engagement: customers are no more treated only as buyers but important actors who are in true relationship with the company. This effectively affect to customer retention rates and satisfaction and thus company's financial performance in the long term.

Knowledge-sharing and innovation tool

Tuomas Nurminen — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:54:31 GMT

Social media can benefit companies in many ways: it can be used as a tool for innovating, it makes knowledge sharing easier, it can increase productivity and it can connect people into virtual workplaces. These are the key things which can enable the transition to the future office.

As people are used to social media tools and willing to use them, companies should take advantage of them in everyday work processes instead of banning them. It is not useful for the company to have many social media tools at the same time as it would be expensive, create complexity to knowledge management and be confusing for the employees. Instead the company should try to build one tool which combines elements from existing tools. It should also be easily accessed and seen and thus, it should be integrated to e.g. the side of the e-mail application or web-browser.

The proposed tool links together features of microblogging- and Wiki-type of applications and thus, is easy to create. In microblogging every employee has their own account. Microblogging is a fast way to express one’s opinions and thoughts, share knowledge (especially tacit one), people can comment easily and get to know each others, they can share files (reduces e-mail traffic), they can follow the most read-blogs or different people/groups (groups are easy to form and can be e.g. customer/project/function/department specific ones) and above all, it can be used as an innovation tool. There are innovation groups/forums where people can post innovations and/or give “points” and comments to others’ innovation suggestions. When the innovation suggestion receives enough points and attention, an automatic notification is sent to the CIO of the company (good ideas and innovations are rewarded). The tool can also be used for brainstorming-sessions which connect the company, customers and e.g. students to work on innovations and ideas. Postings are accessible 24/7 and saved to the history where people can search for them later on.

What combines Wiki-functionality in this tool is that certain bloggings can be modified by different people that have access to it. For example, in project-based companies it is important to have a common place where all the project-related material can be added, ideas posted and information flows between functions built without e-mail floods.

It is vital to get the customers to use the tool as well because it can make communication easier and create synergies between the companies. The parts of this wiki/microblog –tool which are essential for the information exchange between the company and the customer should be accessed through a portal (reduces the use of e-mail). A shared social media tool would also help with service co-creation, which is very important in today’s fast changing world.

Intelligent Social Information Feed

Juho Autio — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:51:37 GMT

As Industrial revolution and Information revolution are passed by, we are experiencing the Social Media Revolution. In the Industrial and informational revolution it was the new technology that revolutionized social and economic fields. Right now, the human-like social-wise knowledge has taken over.

Knowledge is what matters when it comes to the modern organization. The company needs to know it’s cababilities to produce value. The concept of information feed is very typical of social media. In business use we must concentrate on creating a feed that really provides value.

I propose a concept of intelligent social information feed, that revolutionizes the workflow of a knowledge organization (which, in my opinion, is any company now). To really make a business concept that is manageable we mustn’t focus too much on technological details, but shape up a process. The process will be controlled and refined, making the company more efficient thanks to improved knowledge utilization.

The process should contain at least the following main activities: production, enrichment, routing, control and feedback. Production activity mainly consists of input by people and internal or external systems. The enrichment and routing phases are very important from the business perspective, because their motivation is providing only information that is highly concetrated and matters to the recipient.

Enrichment and routing of information should be carried out using machine learning, data mining, semantic reasoning and even pure artificial intelligence techniques, revised by human administration. Control and feedback partly overlap with the former activities, because they are regulative by nature.

To recap what social media has to do with this intelligent feed process – well, just everything! Social media provides a collaborative way of managing information, where people appear as persons with emotions, common sense and judging ability.

Smartphones and social media

Olga Kuznetsova — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:29:05 GMT

I have already mentioned earlier that corporations are under-using the power of mobile phones. Here I would like to discuss more opportunities.

First of all, we need to see more co-operation between mobile phone manufacturers and their corporate clients. When a company buys computers for its staff it can configure it according to its needs. Similar thing could be done in case of mobile phones. This is especially important providing that mobile phone still fall behind laptops in their processing capabilities. So, instead of going for a broad selection of features and applications, companies could specify their needs to ease access to internal tools on-the-go.

In addition, companies could start transmitting information via quick response codes readable by mobile phones. Instead of putting lengthy instructions one could just generate a quick response code linking to an uploaded electronic version of these instructions. If someone makes updates, they will be instantly visible with the help of the same code.

As smart phones become increasingly powerful, people would be able to do more work-related tasks on-the-go. Need a larger screen and a traditional keyboard? They can be connected to the mobile phone. This will raise security issue of easily identifying users and giving them direct access to all necessary tools. One way to do it is by locking individual phones with user's fingerprint.
All in all, I believe companies should pay more attention to how they could benefit from using mobile phones.