At KnowledgeBrief Innovation Days, clients – leading executives from every industry and all disciplines – produce a collective expert view on the most pressing ideas for action right now. This month, KnowledgeBrief clients focused on social networks, including the use of social media.
Communication platforms like Skype, Facebook or other types of medias have become extremely important means of communication. Investing time and energy to understand social networks, externally as well as internally, can have extreme benefits for many companies, and help measure the effectiveness of major initiatives and make organisation change stick.
Yet, at April’s Innovation Day, leaders and managers emphasised big challenges with reaping the benefits from social networks, especially internal collaborations. They simply experience employees having too many tools to navigate and therefore too little efficient use of them.
Research shows that corporate social networks just aren’t that popular in practice1. As a leader, the key is to start collecting and sharing in order to shape specific outcomes. Rather than expecting employees to guess what’s important to you, you can tell them, easily, with stories and pictures on the digital channels they already use. While it’s true that no one really cares what you had for lunch, employees are keenly interested in what you discussed over lunch.
The following management techniques on KnowledgeBrief’s Advanced Management Platform consider the properties of social networks, social media and strategic integration:
These techniques join a library of MBA-level and Chartered Management Institute approved content providing practical case evidence, success factors and implementation advice in a unique format designed for leading executives.
At next month’s Innovation Day, KnowledgeBrief clients will cover with expert Professor Bruce Cronin, Greenwich University, how to use networks for a better innovation strategy (human, business, and digital networks). We will examine how the different networks within and between organisations support effective collaboration, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of different configurations. We’ll look into new ways forward to develop your own internal approaches and collaborative tools.
A main outcome will include guidance as to what can be done, at Leader and Manager level, to get the social network strategy right for your company and ensure platforms are used in the right way to drive creativity and innovation.
Source: 1Li, C. 2015, Why No One Uses the Corporate Social Network, HBR, April 7