Enterprise Microblogging at Siemens, Building Technologies Division: A Descriptive Case Study

8/8/2019 Enterprise Microblogging at Siemens, Building Technologies Division: A Descriptive Case Study

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September 1st, 2010 Building Technologies DivisionReferences@BT, Johannes Müller

© Siemens Switzerland Ltd. 2010

Enterprise Microblogging at Siemens,

Building Technologies Division: A Descriptive Case Study

Johannes Müller

Siemens Switzerland Ltd.

Alexander Stocker Know-Center & Joanneum

Research

presented at:

I-KNOW 2010, Graz, Austria

September 1st, 2010





Mircroblogging:

Examples for

Open or Closed Internet Platforms

Twitter

Yammer

Socialcast

Chatter

screenshot found on

www.salesforce.com/chatter

... and of course even more ...

Communotescreenshot found on

www.communote.com





Typical Mircroblogging

Characteristics

Short messages

(in Twitter max. 140 characters) with limited layout support

possibility to add hyperlinks

possibility to upload attachments

reply to any posting

citation of any other posting ("RT")

reference to other members ("@")

using tags or keywords ("#")

direct or private message to any member ("DM")

'following' other members

'following' certain tags

subscription of any certain piece of content via e-mail

RSS Feed(s) of any certain piece of content

access from mobile devices with dedicated application

Please note: Not every microblog platform offers every feature.





Content in References@BT

Knowledge References

Customer Projects

Solution/Service Concepts

Technology Information

Market Information

External Awards

Business Excellence Cases

Lessons Learned

Forum Postings

Urgent Requests

Solution Talk and General Ideas

News, Trends and Innovations

Fairs and Conferences

BT Academy International

SES Solutions Community

etc.

Microblogging

as Part of References@BT,

a Siemens-Internal Community Platform

knowledge and information sharing

people networking

w i t h f e e d b a c k s

Microblog

Postings

structured

by free

tagging

("Folksonomy")

c o n t r i b

u t e

s

p o s t s q u e s t i o

n

r e a d s





The Application: References@BT

...

is a web platform for the global exchange

of business-related knowledge,

experiences and best-practices,

is a social networking tool, which networkscolleagues and animates them to

communicate to each other,

is intended for internal use (by Siemens

members) only and thus available within

the Siemens intranet,

contains knowledge references (customer

projects, solution/service concepts, etc.)

and suitable documents,

contains several discussion forums (UrgentRequests, etc.) and a microblog

section,

considers its users as global community

(~ 7,000 members located in 73 countries)

supporting each other.

3 m o s t r e

c e n t

m i c r o b l o

g p o s t i n

g s


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Features of the References@BT

Mircroblog:

Content Structure and Display

Postings are not limited to a specific amount of characters.

File attachments are not possible.

Any specific layout apart from hyperlinks is not supported.

Hyperlinks (URL and text) can be easily coded, e.g.:

[[http://www.siemens.com/ Siemens Homepage]]

Replying to any posting is possible.

The initial posting and all replies are hierarchically displayed

as 'topic'.

The author's name and portrait are displayed along with each posting.

Tags or keywords:

Tagging is mandatory for initial postings and optional for replies.

Tags are not pre-defined and can be freely chosen ("Folksonomy").

The most frequently used tags are summarized (see page 9).

Postings can be imported from other microblogging

sites.




Features of the References@BT

Mircroblog:

Subscription and Networking

'Following' other members is possible.

Postings of all 'followed' authors can be received via e-mail oncea day or once a week.

It's possible to receive all new postings once a day.

In case of a new reply, the author is informed via e-mail

immediately (independent of any alert settings).

Several RSS Feeds are provided:

postings from a certain author

postings from all authors, whom anybody is following

postings having a certain tag




Microblog

Examples:

Personal Blog and Blog Topic

f o l l o w e r

s

n e w r e p l y

Al l m i c r o b l o g p o s t i n g s c a n b e

s e a r c h e d t h r o u g h a n d f o r m a

g r o w i n g k n o w l e d g e r e p o s i t o r y .

n e w r e p l y

n e w t o p i c

f o l l o w t h i s c o l l e a g u e

t h i s c

o l l e a

g u e ' s

p o s t i

n g s

p o s t i n g s w i t h s a m e t a g

e -ma i l a ler t




Topics Discussed in the Microblog

This screenshot shows the

most frequently used tags in the

References@BT

Microblog:

N e a r l y a l l p o s t i n

g s

a r e b u s i n e s

s - r e l a t e d.

taken on August 26th, 2010




Promotion Actions for the Microblog

All registered community members in References@BT

have been informed

about the new microblog

and were asked to write own postings. Additional

measures:

textual feedbacks about the new microblog,

textual comments during a user survey,

individual Season’s Greetings shortly before Christmas.

Certain postings filtered according to defined tags are dynamically displayedon related (Web 1.0) intranet pages.

Import of postings owning a certain hashtag

from several microblogging

providers (Twitter , Yammer , Socialcast ).

Members of the same locations are individually proposed for 'following' withina personalized e-mail sent to all community members. This resulted in about

3,000 new following relations within just a few days.




References@BT

Microblog

Statistics

February –

August 2010

Feb 2010 Mar 2010 Apr 2010 May 2010 Jun 2010 Jul 2010 Aug 2010

blog postings 101 102 88 90 158 159 163

blog authors 31 34 39 33 37 58 40

still existingfollowing relations 60 106 47 45 67 53 2,988

Total figures on September 1st

, 2010:1,989

blog postings

458

blog authors

3,870 existing following relations




Benefits of the References@BT

Mircroblog

(1):

Perceived Usefulness

easy way of sharing information (5 statements)

the additional channel of promoting events (2 statements)

new means of networking with others (2 statements)

suitable tool to improve writing skills (2 statements)

possibility to follow experts (1 statement)

way of identifying current trends (1 statement)

new awareness of latest happenings (1 statement)

"The microblogging

tool helps to understand or be aware of the latest happenings

in terms of product releases, features, market enhancements, etc. in the BT

Division. (...) This will help to benefit in terms of knowledge,

understand some of

the best-practices used in BT, and to network with others."





Mircroblog

(2):

Perceived Ease of Use

grouping of blogs with certain tags

possibility of adding HTML links to blog posts

possibility of importing blog posts from externally hosted

microblogging

services

possibility of forwarding blog topics or profile pages

"We need to look at Web 2.0 aspects and try to improve this tool

to be inclined

towards Web 2.0 standards. Since the number of blog entries is increasing, it is

good to group all the blogs to their respective blog group name."





Mircroblog

(3):

Perceived Individual Benefits

getting the right contacts (5 statements)

assistance on getting the right information/knowledge (4 statements)

enlarging the personal network (1 statement)

learning from followers (1 statement)

gaining an edge on information (1 statement)

"(...) The microblogging tool helped me in getting the right contactsworking on a specific protocol and to receive more information

about this protocol that helped me with my documentation work."





Mircroblog

(4):

Perceived Organizational Benefits

better flow of information caused by the microblogging

service (4 statements)

enabling of worldwide networking (4 statements)

drive on knowledge management practices and learning

(1 statement)

reduced overall workload (1 statement)

diffusion of rich experiences which lead to moreinnovative thinking and better products (1 statement)

"Finding other people in the organization that might have the skills or knowledgeyou require for a particular problem is often very hard. Microblogging

provides

the ability to find and exchange knowledge with other people in the organization

and thus enables very quickly best-practice sharing and avoids 'reinventing the

wheel'. It also reduces the workload compared to e-mail communication. (...)"




More Information about References@BT

Would you like to learn more aboutReferences@BT? Feel free to visit the

presentation in the I-KNOW Praxisforum:

References@BT

–

a Case Study for

Knowledge Exchange and Social

Networking using Web 2.0 within the

Organization

Thursday, September 2nd, 11:00-11:30 am

(The presentation is spoken in German.)


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Contact for Questions and Feedback

Dr. Johannes Müller

Siemens Switzerland Ltd.

Building Technologies DivisionZug, Switzerland

e-Mail: [email protected]

https://www.xing.com/profile/Johannes_Mueller47

Dr. Alexander Stocker

Know-Center & Joanneum ResearchGraz, Austria

e-Mail: [email protected]

https://www.xing.com/profile/Alexander_Stocker





Enterprise Microblogging at Siemens, Building Technologies Division: A Descriptive Case Study

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