Social Media Week workshop, February 21 2013

Social software inside

the business

BendixKiel – Podio Work Architects

As a 2012 McKinsey report suggests, Social Business can increase

productivity of knowledge workers by 25%. To achieve this you need

1. to move to a social work platform like Podio and

2. to foster an environment of trust so that sharing and collabora-

tion can truly flourish.

To change a work culture, and for people to see the immense bene-

fits of working socially, visionary leadership is required. Further by

involving employees in an iterative development process of their own

tools will help you create drivers in all parts of the organization. As

technical maintenance is reduced with solutions like Podio, you can

focus on keeping the system up to date with the changing work tasks

of the company.

We recommend doing pilot projects, identifying the most valuable

areas that are the most open to change. A step-by-step roll out gives

employees time to adjust, to participate, and to learn.

“Social Business integrates social software with critical business processes to improve the productivity of the workforce”

- Anders Bendix Kiel, Podio Work Architect @ BendixKiel

Values of Social Business

• Increase cross-boundary communication and collaboration

• Lower employee turnover

• Increase employee engagement and knowledge sharing

• Reduce email clutter, have more effective meetings

• Easily identify expertises across the organization

• Integrate formal and informal communication

• Increase trust due to shared context and identity

Advice

• Map out which areas of your operation would benefit most

• Engage leadership and employees in platform development

• Implementation efforts must be business goal driven

• Work-in-progress means gradual employee training

• Kill mistrust, the number one enemy of working socially

• Have fun – a good digital work enviroment should be a

rewarding and well rounded experience

$900-1.3 billionvalue potential in social technologies

20-25%increased productivity among knowledge workers

66%of this increase is due to better collaboration and coordination

- McKinsey 2012: “The social economy”

Case: the advertising agency RAPP

Rapp Germany has adopted the social work platform Podio. 195 users

are currently enrolled. Together they have worked on more than

2000 tasks in just six months. Richard Weiss has led this trans-

formation. He is therefore both a proponent for Social Business, and

knowledgeable of the challenges that arise when a large organization

must reorganize and rethink how work is done. The current setup has

done away with most internal email, and project overviews, task- and

ressource management are all now conducted within Podio. That

way communication stays in context. The adaption process is being

supported by focused training sessions, competitions and a mixing of

leisure and work related content. Richard Weiss has experienced that

before changes in mindset and workflow there must be leadership. A

top down approach is needed to foster an environment where em-

ployees are empowered to shape their own work tools.

“Once people experience the benefits they will start imagining how other workflows can be trans-formed”

- Richard Weiss, Manager of Business Operations @ RAPP

Value created at RAPP

• Higher transparency, faster coordination, better outcome

• Chat-in-context replaces slow email coorespondance

• Personal and delegated tasks shared in one place

• A move from push to pull means less spamming behavior

• Easy transfer of tasks when an employee falls ill

• Centralised address book holds great value

Advice

• Waves of change: Once people experience the benefits they will

start imagining how other worlflows can be transformed

• Think top down: Strong leadership required

• Keep it relevant and simple

• Work and pleasure goes hand in hand – put both the “soft” and

the “hard” stuff in Podio

• Maintain your system regurlarly

Podio Work Architectswww.bendixkiel.organders@bendixkiel.org+45 71 99 05 80@bendixkiel