Blog

Below is video from our recent webinar on “6 Best Practices for Gaining End-user Adoption of New Technology.” In this video Dave Colaizzi discusses the value of change management, change communications, training, and performance support in gaining end-user adoption of new technology.

Below is video from our recent webinar on “6 Best Practices for Gaining End-user Adoption of New Technology.” In this video Dave Colaizzi discusses strategies for setting clear expectations and measuring success in the process of rolling out new technology.

Below is video from our recent webinar on “6 Best Practices for Gaining End-user Adoption of New Technology.” In this video Dave Colaizzi discusses strategies for gaining end-user and stakeholder buy-in for new technology.

In a recent post, we discussed how Social Media is making its mark on the corporate landscape. In that post, we talked at a high level about the reasons why corporations are using Social Media. These reasons included enabling communication, collaboration, and media sharing within organizations. If you have not had a chance to check out this post, you can do so here.

In today’s post, we are going to continue the discussion by specifically focusing on how organizations are applying Social Media technology to solve real business challenges. There are many applications of Social Media. Although there are many nuances in implementation applications, seven common types have bubbled to the top.

• Organizational learning, , communication, and collaboration – Resources used for people to create virtual communities focused on specific interests, roles, geographies, and professional networks.
• Innovation management – Resources used to leverage the content sharing, rating, and discussion aspects of Social Media in order to ask a population of people, “How would you solve this challenge?”
• Customer engagement and relationship building – Resources used to connect customers based on needs, purchases, and shared interests. Content and media can be shared, rated, and distributed only to those who choose to see that content.
• Recruitment – Resources used to communicate the status of job openings and recruitment events and connect applicants who share the common interest of gaining employment with an organization.
• Marketing and brand building – Resources and sites to enforce an organization’s brand by providing collaborative tools and resources for people who share common needs, experiences, and interests.
• Partner relationship – Resources used to connect partner organizations together based on needs, purchases, markets, verticals, and shared interests. Content and media can be shared, rated, and distributed only to those who choose to see that content.
• On-boarding – Websites and resources used to connect newly hired employees together so that they can share knowledge and information with each other and collaborate with seasoned employees on how to successfully navigate a new work environment.

As you plan to implement a Social Media application, it is important to point out two things:

1. Before implementing any technology, including Social Media, there must be a compelling reason for doing so. Ideally, this purpose should be rooted in the pursuit of helping solve the felt needs of the end users. Most organizations cannot afford to implement novel technology. Therefore, as you explore how your organization can employ Social Media, be sure to take the time to understand your audience and their felt needs so that you can adequately implement technology to meet those needs.
2. Although Social Media applications tend to be much more organic in nature than other enterprise technology, this does not undervalue of good implementation plan. A good implementation plan outlines a clear strategy for how the technology will be deployed and communicated. Most importantly, this plan should identify the feedback mechanisms that will be put in place to ensure that end user comments are gathered and responded to in a strategic and timely manner.

Over the last five years, the emergence of Social Media and its impact on society has been well documented. Social Media connects people with similar interests through technology, enabling them to share ideas/thoughts and media and collaborate around common interests. What separates Social Media from all of the previous technology-enabled movements is the dramatic paradigm shift in who drives and owns the content. Check out this great YouTube clip, which illustrates this point and demonstrates how Social Media works.

A recent Harris poll found that 49% of Americans are using Social Networking tools. This is an amazing statistic if one considers that most of these tools did not exist several years ago. The growth and popularity of these tools is going to continue to grow as they continue to gain acceptance and utility within the workplace. Some might argue that the adoption and use of these tools represents the next great opportunity for corporations.

But, how exactly can corporations use Social Media? To answer this question, it is important to understand the value that Social Media brings to a corporation. There are several key reasons why corporations are using or plan to adopt Social Media. These include:

• Communication – Enabling people to communicate with each other when they need to and about topics they find most important. Some examples of applications that are now in use include Blogs (Blogger, WordPress, and Vox), Microblogs (Twitter and Yammer), Social Networking (LinkedIn), and Events (Meetup and Upcoming).
• Collaboration – Tools to enable people to work together more efficiently and share common information that they deem important. Some examples of these tools include Social Tagging tools (Delicious and Digg), Wikis (Wikipedia), Virtual Environments (SecondLife), and Ratings Tools (Answers sites).
• Media Sharing – Sites and tools that enable people to share media about a specific topic or area with each other. Some examples of these tools include Photo Sharing (Flickr), Video Sharing (YouTube and Vimeo), LiveCasting (Ustream and Justin.tv), and Audio Sharing (Podcasts).

We are interested in finding out more about how your organization has implemented or plans to implement Social Media. Use the comments box below to submit your ideas and discuss them with us.

The highly competitive global market has placed a premium on arming sales forces with the information needed to engage clients in a dialogue about products and services as quickly as possible. Developing customized sales presentations that contain current, branded, and legally approved content can be a challenge for both large and small organizations alike. Sales teams spend valuable time and resources retrieving and verifying relevant information from a variety of different sources for their sales presentations. Time spent searching through old sales presentations and consulting product development and legal departments to validate information is time taken away from their primary role of selling.

To make the process of designing, developing, and delivering more efficient, Five Star recently partnered with one of our largest global clients to develop support tools that leverage this kind of expertise across key organizational departments, including sales, marketing, product, and legal, to deliver on-demand presentations. These “Presentation Builder Tools” allow a sales person to step through a series of questions or options to craft a presentation deck that considers product mix, sales life cycle stage, and competitive intelligence. In a few short steps the salesperson has a current, legally approved presentation to share with their clients. A process that once took several days can be completed in a matter of minutes.

The presentations developed using these tools are not only effective for use with clients, but they also serve to keep sales staff up-to-date on new product offerings and enhancements. The tools can be used to onboard new staff, showcase new product and service offerings, and highlight previous successes. In addition, they can also provide information to augment the presentation, such as audio files that provide talking points about products and lifecycle stages. These clips provide expert direction, pointing to relevant case studies and checklists to help solidify an effective sales delivery.

Solutions like Presentation Builder Tools illustrate the value of integrating the Five Key Drivers. High-performance organizations continuously improve to support their workforce by providing technology that enables the efficient delivery of services to customers. In this case, the Presentation Builder Tools helped our client maximize their sales team’s efficiency by delivering accurate, consistent, and approved offerings to their customers.

What current processes hinder your sales organization’s ability to effectively execute it’s sales strategy?