Internal social media have a hard time getting priority in most companies – if that’s the reason for the Internal Social Media Forum being held in a hotel basement in Madrid is not for me to say, but the thoght did enter my mind during the first day.
Regardless of the venue, I did see some very interesting presentations with some good learnings, ideas, and food for thought. The highlight of the day – at least for me – was the presentation by Jerome from Alcatel Lucent. I was truly impressed by the level of internal transparency and openness they have achieved in a company of 77,000 employees.
The most striking takeaway was that the users had rejected Sharepoint as the platform of choise!
- Sharepoint rejected?
- Users had a say?
I’m officially impressed! According to Jerome, this wasa due to the fact that people brought their expericences from ’outside’ platforms like Yammer and Facebook which made them expect the same simplicity internally.
Other interesting takeaways was the focus on gamification from Verizon. Elizabeth told how they focused on the person and not the processes which, obviously, talks to the ”Ego-factor” that all people possess in some degree, and there is no doubt that vanity is a very powerful motivator when it comes to user adoption.
The final presentation of the day was from SAP and what struck me the most was the honesty about what makes people tick. Not strategies, not figures, but stories about real people. If you find what Angela and her team has dubbed ’Extreme Heroes’ and tell their story you create lots of engagement. It may not be strictly business relevant, but in this age of social media, engagement is what you are looking for, and what company can honestly say that they don’t want engaged employees?
All in all a very interesting day 1, and I am certainly looking forward to the sequel tomorrow. Stay tuned for more from the basement in Madrid, or follow the hashtag #ISM2011 on Twitter 🙂
Connaxions 
Many thanks for the quote Martin as well as for this first overview of the ISM 2011 conference in Madrid!
You are most welcome…. and thanks for a very interesting presentation and conversations. I hope that we, one day, will get as far as you have in Alcatel Lucent.
Thanks for keeping us posted about this conference, Martin! Looking forward to the other posts.
Why did you decide to go to this conference?
I thought that Madrid in November sounded very nice…. 🙂
No, just kidding. I was invited to speak at the event, and it turned out to be a very nice conference with a good mix of useful insights and good networking.