Laurence Lock Lee

How long does it take before SWOOP has an impact on your ESN?

This question was recently posed to us and we didn’t have a quick answer.  In this post we have taken the time to make a considered response to a question we expect all of those considering SWOOP would be interested in. SWOOP Democratises Analytics  SWOOP is an analytics product that uniquely provides its insights to all staff members. The default screen when opening SWOOP is a person’s personal view of their interactions. This data is secured to the individual. Other analytics (groups, topics, business units and enterprise views) are available to all. The intent behind our design is that behavioural change has to happen at…

“Social” Groups in Enterprise Social Networks

In this final article in our series on Enterprise Social Group types, we address the so-called “non-work” groups. One of the greatest fears we hear from Internal Communications Managers on launching their brand new Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) platform is that staff will only use it for frivolous “non-work” communications. When SWOOP conducted one of its very first group benchmarking studies for a large corporate client with more than 50,000 staff, the greatest fear was that the “Joke Sharing” group would come out on top (it didn’t).   Often the fear of what senior executives might think about supposedly “non-work” groups making use of company…

Announcement and Broadcasting Groups

When it comes to making an all-company announcement, arguably the richest channel is always face to face. But for large and distributed organisations, that becomes impractical. With an Enterprise Social Network (ESN), the CEO and executive can speak directly to staff at all levels, making the ESN a rich channel that can scale for large and distributed businesses.  This post continues SWOOP’s series on Groups within ESN platforms. The ‘Announcements’ group is often one of the first formed on a newly installed ESN; a venue for the CEO and other leaders to speak with all employees. The ESN can provide a differentiated channel for engaging staff in dialog around corporate-wide announcements. ESNs provide a more informal channel through which staff and the executive can engage…

SWOOP for Microsoft Teams – we’re getting closer

We are excited to tell you about how we are progressing with SWOOP for Microsoft Teams and give you a peek at what’s in store.  For those of you who have used SWOOP for Yammer, there will be little familiarisation required as most of the widgets and measures are similar to what you’re used to seeing. And you’ll be pleased to know that we plan on providing insights and recommendations on migrations between Teams and Yammer groups.  For those new to SWOOP, you will find SWOOP prioritises relationships and behavioural change over simple activity counts. We believe high performing teams…

Forums & Discussion Boards – for Problem Solving and Idea Sharing

Have you ever asked an online group in your organisation to put a price on the value gained from sharing ideas? Have they saved time, shared knowledge or provided new opportunities?  We think you’ll be surprised at how quickly the value, and dollars saved, adds up. But it’s important to be purposeful and focused when establishing an online forum.  This post continues on our theme for addressing the different group types typically found on Enterprise Social Network (ESN) platforms. After email, online forums are one of the most pervasive applications for online collaboration. Dating from the 1970s and variously called bulletin boards, email lists, newsgroups, expert groups and more recently Internet forums;…

Are Private Groups More Openly Sharing than Public Groups?

Amy Dolzine from accounting firm EY recently reflected on five years of observing Yammer groups, both public and private, and like many of us has been promoting transparency and open group collaboration. However, she made the following observation:  “In my observations, completely without data, it feels like having private spaces where the audience is limited to a select group, ironically enables people to be more open. When you ask people in an org to be vulnerable to all, people are not as yet willing to ask the difficult questions, and people are less willing to answer. But in a smaller subset they are.”   Amy’s post intrigued us, perhaps because in some…