Peer to Peer Magazine

WWW.ILTANET.ORG 31 GENERATE SHORT-TERM WINS We are still in the early days of feedback, but there are encouraging signs for the future with the following short-term wins: Discrete practice areas can develop a rich repository of content with relatively few practitioners posting material. RBC Connect can serve as a new vehicle for broad-based department communications to promote new efficiency initiatives, broadcast charitable efforts and technology projects, and bring a globally dispersed staff closer together. Brief rotating video clips profiling individuals in various offices have proven particularly successful. Existing content can be refreshed in a new format. Specialized applications are possible. An example is GCG Legislation Watch, a community run by our law library that posts incoming legislation and regulation, allowing community members to follow particular content of interest. Business partners are posting playbooks (e.g., how to integrate newly acquired businesses), and this signals opportunities for our Law Group to add further content in business partners' communities. The beginnings of actual legal work are being conducted in projects in private communities (e.g., analyzing the legal and business impact of a recent Supreme Court of Canada case). CONSOLIDATE GAINS AND MAKE MORE CHANGE RBC Connect lends itself well to metrics reporting. Within set deadlines, we can strive to increase numbers of posted documents, communities, members, followers and so on. Still, the underlying objective of a transformational shift in the way we communicate and leverage knowledge is on a less stringent timeline. As we succeed in operating relatively small communities, our long-term objectives should move us beyond private to open communities that will optimize the promise of enterprise networking in a way that a passive intranet cannot accomplish. ANCHOR NEW APPROACHES IN THE CULTURE Change, once achieved, needs to be anchored, or it will drift away. RBC Connect has certain rules and expectations for those who venture forth in the new platform. Whether they are communities of purpose, practice or interest, dedicated community managers are required. They drive progress and keep the community on track to meet its objectives — in effect, they anchor the communities. Some communities will last long term with the right blend of leadership and membership deriving real value. Others will achieve their objectives quickly and disband, and some will perish because they lack sufficient purpose or critical mass participation. We also have life boats. We are kept afloat each day by two dedicated and highly effective technology support teams: • The Connect Team, responsible to the entire organization • The GCG Tech Support Team rescues us within our own waters LEADING CHANGE FOR THE LONG HAUL We are a long way from victory. In a blog post titled "Defining Success in the Modern Day Workflow," Greg Lambert says you know you have real success with a product or service when an employee says, "If you take this away from me, … I cannot effectively do my job." Email has hit that level of success in everyone's workflow; social enterprise networking has not (yet). At RBC, we've used John Kotter's criteria for leading change to explore a richer technology platform, and active users are in it for the long haul. 2 3 4 5 6 Corporations using internal social media identified the top benefits to be increasing access to knowledge, reducing communication costs and increasing speed of access to internal experts.

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