Carwin Heierman: Social "for the sake of social" has no business value!

Today we have some more English answers in our interview series on the "Digital Workplace Revolution". Carwin Herrman is in charge for the international business development at our Social Business Arena partner hoozin.


1. What is your key pitch for the topics of “Social Collaboration”, “Enterprise 2.0” and “Digital Workplace”? What is your “why” and your “what” for these approaches?

It is important to understand that Social ‘for the sake of social’ has no business value. Yes, we need more social, but we need also find the right processes and workflows to capitalize on the positive effects of Social. Improved collaboration is now one of the biggest corporate optimization processes that lays ahead of many organizations. By not engaging into a more collaborative organization map, companies will become less competitive and will continue to run high "silo" costs. In order to become a more optimized collaborative organization one would need an excellent and innovative software, as well as senior guidance in change management. It is critical to hold key metrics against these changes to measure progress and success.

2. Why do we not see any substantial successes and changes resulting from this topic at the end of 2014?

Many organizations follow the so called "Yammer" approach of Social. This version of social is now legacy. "Water cooler talk" is more a nice to have versus real business value. The true success lies in mixing 2 things at the same time:

• Socialize people with excellent software
• Socialize applications and processes with the same excellent software.

Many corporations never put an aim on Point B, reducing their Collaboration Strategy to a simple legacy Yammer like Social strategy.

3. What are your key building blocks for a good strategy approach to the topics of “Social Collaboration” & “Digital Workplace”?

The blocks are built on 3 steps.

1. Create an appealing platform to share knowledge and apply "Social"
2. Build communities that are based on business topics, projects or departments
3. Integrate social stream around Applications and have the business use document management and apps in the context of these communities.

4. What are the business processes that provide assuredly quick wins with these approaches?

First of all, excellent software that is not limited in vloud or on premises requirements. Software that can grow over time to the organizational looks, standards and very important, application requirements. Integration is key as well here. Implement per business unit and not over the board. Apply pre-defined success criteria and put metrics against them.

5. What is your key recommendation for the introduction and establishment of these topics in the enterprise?

Stakeholder buy in. Upper Management must mandate a clear roadmap to improve collaboration, reduce unproductive emails, meetings and boost collaboration with vendors and customers. A good way to create awareness is to do a "Social Collaboration Readiness" research in your organization.