Corporate Social Media as Collaboration Alternative

Companies face a problem in developing and implementing a plan to encourage knowledge sharing within the organization. Email is a one-way communication medium and a wasteful way to cooperate that has been around for 50 years. Executives have approved millions of dollars in shareholder money for digital people, procedures, and infrastructure, but many are still waiting for the return on investment. Companies are considering internal social networks and corporate social media as providing the answer the employee productivity and performance puzzle. One of the most powerful ways a company can improve performance is to expose the creative talent in the organization and engage all employees in problem solving. MECE (pronounced “meesee”), mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, is a framework used by management consulting firms in organizing information and mapping business process. The MECE principle can also be applied to workplace social networks and online collaboration-

• Mutually exclusive– (“no overlaps”) is about critical thinking; allowing information to flow freely, organizing it, synthesizing it and quickly eliminate redundancies. Workplace social networks enable you to collect information from all over the organization, and identify and leverage the “right talent” to get the job done.

• Collectively exhaustive– (“no gaps”) is about creative thinking, innovative thinking; being inclusive and considering all possibilities.  Workplace social networks foster crowd sourcing and creative problem solving; employees are engaged in their work, and seek ways to connect with others who share their passion and push each other to find the bet solution.

Workplace Social Networks Share Knowledge Best Practices

A recent WSJ article, “Social Networking Heads to the Office”, highlighted how companies are leveraging social networks to share knowledge/best practices and increase productivity by making it easier to find the right person and track activities. Organizations are leveraging internal networks to unleash a new theology of solving problems, executing with agility and creating an innovative culture. Is your company grappling with how to manage the flood of information and enable dispersed workers to collaborate?

SPECIAL THANKS to my niece, Carolyn Crosby, a Babson College senior- who exposed me to MECE concepts, expanded my thinking and took time out of our Easter weekend to collaborate with me on this post.

Lisa Bonner is the Assistant Vice President of Contemporary Work Practices at The Hartford.  She is the proud mother of very active 14 year-old twin boys and resides in Suffield, Connecticut. Connect with her on LinkedIn.  The opinions expressed are personal and not related to The Hartford.