Transform: How Leading Companies are Winning with Disruptive Social Technology

By Christopher Morace and Sara Gaviser Leslie

Transform . . . or Be Left Behind

Create unprecedented business value with social technologies

Chief Strategy Officer at Jive Software, Christopher Morace was one of the first people to arrive at the intersection of social technology and business strategy. He has overseen more than 800 deployments of social technology in major corporations. A true pioneer of what is arguably the most important development in business today, Morace knows better than anyone how social technology is changing the way businesses operate and how successful companies are leveraging it to their advantage. Now, in this groundbreaking guide, Morace reveals all his secrets. He walks you through best practices for developing a winning business strategy that places heavy focus on collaboration, open communication, and wide networks of connections--absolute necessities for success in business today.

Morace outlines the strategic steps every leader must take in order to compete in today's constantly shifting business landscape:

• Learn about the newest social and related technologies (such as mobile, the cloud, and big data) and the capabilities they offer.
• Enact the behavioral changes within your company that will enable these capabilities to be incorporated into day-to-day operations.
• Determine your starting point, choose a platform, launch a social business solution, and measure your progress.

Transform is packed with firsthand accounts of companies that have taken these very steps to drive positive change, increase profits, and experience measurable growth. Morace gives you an inside look at how Chubb Insurance, McAfee, EMC, T-Mobile, Bupa, SolarWinds, UBS, Alcatel-Lucent, Genentech, and others have applied his methods. He also offers valuable commentary from industry professionals such as Marc Andreessen and academics from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business.

Technology is advancing at an exponential pace, and it's changing the way the world does business. You can keep doing things the way you've done them. Or you can Transform. The right choice is obvious--and simpler to implement than you might think.

PRAISE FOR TRANSFORM

"The tools and frameworks that Chris Morace describes in Transform are vital for companies looking to win in today’s competitive market." -- Aaron Levie, Cofounder and CEO, Box

"This is a must-read book for any customer seeking to improve how work gets done, the customer experience, and the innovation cycle." -- R "Ray" Wang, Principal Analyst and CEO, Constellation Research, Inc.

"My advice is simple: read this book if you want to empower your people and improve your organization." -- Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist, MIT's Center for Digital Business, author of Enterprise 2.0, and coauthor of Race Against the Machine

"There's a revolution happening in corporations around the world. To succeed in this revolution, knowledge has to be shared. You need a social platform, one like Morace describes, that knows what you want to know, presents ideas to you, and enables you to connect to the right people." -- Debby Hopkins, Chief Innovation Officer, Citi

"Morace captures the process and effort that it takes to provide disruptive technologies flawlessly. Stop reading this endorsement and go buy the book already! Don't waste time. The next disruption may be your own--if you don't listen to what Morace is telling you." -- Paul Greenberg, author of the bestselling CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers, and President, The 56 Group, LLC

• Language: English
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Release date: Nov 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9780071823920

Book preview

Praise for Transform: How Leading Companies Are Winning with Disruptive Social Media

Social technology is core to T-Mobile’s vision and road map. In Transform, Chris offers both a complete mastery of social technology and step-by-step instructions for how companies can win in this space.

—Scott Tweedy, Vice President Customer Service and Sales, T-Mobile

Every business in the world is affected by the changing nature of work, rapid pace of innovation, and disruption occurring all around us. Organizations realize that to stay ahead, they have to approach their technology, culture, and processes differently. The tools and frameworks that Chris Morace describes in Transform are vital for companies looking to win in today’s competitive market.

—Aaron Levie, Cofounder and CEO, Box

When I need to better understand something about how software, particularly social software, is being used by companies, Chris Morace is the first person I go to. In Transform, he’s distilled what he knows and made it accessible it to a wide audience. My advice is simple: read it if you want to empower your people and improve your organization.

—Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist, MIT’s Center for Digital Business, and author of Enterprise 2.0 and coauthor of Race Against the Machine

There’s a revolution happening in corporate America. To succeed in this revolution, knowledge has to be shared. You need a social platform, one like Chris Morace describes, that knows what you want to know, presents ideas to you, and enables you to connect to the right people. In very large companies like ours, a social business platform allows us to recognize what we know and gets us to the heart of what we are trying to make happen.

—Debby Hopkins, Chief Innovation Officer, Citi

As the social business revolution enters the next wave, organizations that missed the first wave will want to know the secrets of success of the market leaders and fast followers. Chris Morace’s book provides the lessons learned by some of the most successful early adopters. This is a must-read book for any organization seeking to improve how work gets done, the customer experience, and the innovation cycle.

—R. Ray Wang, Principal Analyst and CEO, Constellation Research, Inc.

Disruptive technologies are transformative by their nature. They alter how we work and how we live. In this extremely well-written book, Chris Morace captures the process and effort that it takes to provide disruptive technologies flawlessly. Stop reading this endorsement and go buy the book, or the next disruption may be your own!

—Paul Greenberg, author of the bestselling CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers and President, The 56 Group, LLC

More than a decade ago, The Cluetrain Manifesto described a powerful new global conversation between customers and companies, foreshadowing a massive power shift. Now, the social/mobile/cloud technologies that enable these new relationships at scale are accessible to all. In Transform, Chris Morace provides an indispensable guide that describes how to win in the new customer-empowered marketplace.

—Mark Yolton, Vice President Digital Strategy Enablement, Cisco

The world has changed; how we create value has changed. But, have you? If the industrial era was about building things, the social era is about connecting things, people, and ideas. In Transform, you learn how to be a talent-enabled, purpose-filled, and community-driven organization. Then, and only then, will you thrive.

—Nilofer Merchant, TED speaker, business innovator, and author of The New How and 11 Rules for Creating Value in the #Social Era

Knowledge and information are the raw materials of innovation and competitive advantage in the global economy. Chris Morace makes a strategic case for social business then combines it with the experiences of real companies that have used social to unlock the value of their knowledge and turn it into innovative products and services.

—Jon Bidwell, Chief Innovation Officer, Chubb & Son, Inc.

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To John Rizzo, who understands the power of belief and transformation.

CONTENTS

Foreword by Tony Zingale

Acknowledgments

1   Disruption in the Enterprise

2   The Technologies Causing Unprecedented Disruption Now

3   New Capabilities and Removed Constraints

4   Business Drivers and Value Framework

5   Designing and Executing a Successful Rollout

6   Common Missteps in Embracing Social Technologies

7   The Unresolved Issues

8   Time to Get Started

Notes

Index

FOREWORD

Everyone who works in a corporation deals with the same issue: how to drive revenue and increase the bottom line. That means higher productivity, better business processes, faster decision making, fewer meetings, less travel, less e-mail, and less time wasted.

CEOs and CIOs have tried to deliver business value by spending massive amounts of money and time selecting exactly the right technology for their organization. This worked for a while. The entire industry got really good at automating thousands and thousands of business processes with layers of management, protocols, and silos— pulling every bit of cost imaginable out of the business. But though we’ve spent billions of dollars and become great at automating the enterprise, we’ve overlooked something critically important.

Consider the fact that businesses today are spending 70% of their annual operating budget on their people. Yet, what have we done for them? The vast majority of employees still work with old tools and slow bureaucratic, time-sucking processes, which require countless meetings. In McKinsey’s groundbreaking social economy study of July 2012, it was found that people waste 28 hours per week doing mindless tasks like responding to e-mails, searching for information, and sitting in on irrelevant meetings.

Why wouldn’t we want to make an investment in our most important asset—our people? And how can we bridge the gap between the way people now communicate and engage in their personal lives and the way they work every day?

The new workforce is social. They grew up on Facebook, LinkedIn, Skype, and Twitter. They’re used to getting instant responses from their networks via IM and group texts. E-mail, however, is an ancient tool. Younger workers don’t know how to set up—let alone check— voice mail when the light flashes on the desk phone. They are mobile; smartphone adoption in the United States is faster than any other major technology shift, including television, the Internet, e-mail, and even radio. They live in the cloud; they need information whenever and wherever they are across all their devices. Who has the time or inclination to be chained to a workstation? They don’t want to use an e-mail system that’s 40 years old, an ERP system that’s 25 years old, and a CRM application that’s 15 years old.

It is time to turn the Titanic. The enterprise is replatforming due to the convergence of cloud, mobile, big data, and social, and it’s changing the way work gets done—forever. Social enterprise platforms that combine these technologies are drastically transforming business cultures and creating business value. Instead of just servers and network systems connecting, in the new world of work, people, places, and content are now connecting to work better. When employees can navigate this information, get personalized results, and consult the social graph to find more relevant information, they can spend more time doing what they love— and get paid to do it! Instead of wasting time, they can code more, develop more, sell more, market more, and innovate faster.

As this book makes clear, the business value of social is real. I’ve always believed that the social era will be the most important transformation that happens in the enterprise. But until now, we’ve heard too much talk about social for social’s sake. Today, we’ve turned the page on social software in the enterprise. It’s not just about fun; it’s not just about technology; and it’s not Facebook for the enterprise. You need to know why you are using social technologies and platforms to grow revenue, increase profitability, and spur innovation. If done right, social will become the mission critical technology in any business.

Forward-thinking enterprises recognize that to advance and engage this new workforce, you can’t use old tools to do new things. This book is for every company that wants to learn how to retool around social, mobile, and cloud, unlock the silos, and break down the barriers with big data. Hundreds of companies are already using social business tools to create value. These companies were once in the exact place where you are today. This book shows you how to follow their lead.

We are still at the beginning of the social enterprise evolution. But the rising tides of the new workforce cannot be ignored. We deserve business systems that unlock creativity and human potential. We are right on the cusp of changing the way work gets done.

Tony Zingale

CEO, Jive Software

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Christopher Morace:

I’ve learned many things while writing this book, but the most important is that publishing requires relying on the generosity and insight of a tremendous number of individuals. I’m fortunate to be surrounded by so many talented (and patient) friends and colleagues. I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to the creation of this book—it would not exist without you.

First off, I’d like to thank Tony Zingale and John Rizzo for having the vision, patience, and belief required to bring this book to fruition and for encouraging me when I lost faith. And to my wife, Saira, who on top of running her own business, teaching, serving on boards, and holding down every aspect of our family life somehow manages to find time to support my crazy endeavors.

I’d like to thank everyone who contributed thought leadership, experience, insights, and perspective to the substance of this book including Adam Mertz, Adam Nash, Allison Kaplan, Andrea Bredow, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Wang, Anna-Christina Douglas, Beth Laking, Bill Lanfri, Bill Lynch, Bob Benz, Brace Rennels, Brian Carr, Claire Flanagan, Dave DeWalt, Dave Gutelius, David Cook, Deirdre Walsh, Esteban Kolsky, Gia Lyons, Greg D’Alesandre, Greg Gerik, Ian MacLeod, Jeff Coleman, Jesper Sørensen, Joe Kraus, John Schwiller, John Stepper, Josh Leslie, Justin Fitzhugh, Kathryn Everest, Kevin Mazzola, Lance Riedel, Marc Andreessen, Mark Leslie, Mark Weitzel, Matt Tucker, Nathan Rawlins, Nilofer Merchant, Paula Young, Rajat Paharia, Ray Wang, Ryan Rutan, Scott Johnston, Scott Ross, Simon Levene, Steve Kahl, Tim Albright, and Tim Zonca. You see things before they become obvious to the rest of us. I learned a lot from each and every one of you; I’m excited that others will also benefit from your knowledge.

There are many pitfalls, traps, and mistakes in the publishing journey for a newbie. I had the benefit of being coached by some outstanding authors who took the journey before me. To Andy McAfee, Gianluigi Longinotti-Buitoni, Andy Sernovitz, Paul Greenberg, Rajat Paharia, Hunter Muller, and Melissa Barker: thanks for setting my expectations and teaching me that there are many things to think about other than just the publisher.

I’d like to thank everyone who helped with some aspect of the creation process: Jason Zeiber for an incredible cover. Lorena Guerra for all of her work on the visuals. Sydney Sloan, Megan Moxley, Robert Pollie, and John McCracken for helping to pull together and get approval for some amazing case studies. Suzame Tong for ensuring we got the resources we needed and, along with Christelle Flahaux, Amanda Pires, and Jason Khoury, for helping to get the word out to the world and present the book in its best light. Sarah Weatherhead and Bill Pierznik who translated legal-ese and helped keep me out of trouble.

Enormous thanks go to Diana Reynolds Roome, our esteemed editor. You efficiently transformed a document into a polished manuscript. Unbelievably, we never wore you down.

For lending me the weight of their reputations and endorsing the book, I’d like to thank Jon Bidwell, HK Dunston, Aaron Levie, Ray Wang, Andy McAfee, Paul Greenberg, Nilofer Merchant, Debby Hopkins, Rob Koplowitz, Scott Tweedy, Mark Yolton, and Tony Zingale. To have your public support is flattering beyond words. So simply, thank you.

Thanks to the entire McGraw-Hill Business team for all of their hard work making this book a reality. I’d especially like to thank Stephanie Frerich for believing in the book and making the case to publish it and Knox Huston for being a fantastic partner through the process.

Lastly, I’d like to thank my partner in crime, Sara Leslie. I’m not sure either of us knew the enormity of what we were taking on when we started this project, although I do credit her with trying to talk me out of it. Thank you for the endless hours of writing, rewriting, rewriting, rewriting, researching, cat herding, project management, Chris management, and tenacious follow-through. I know you are smart enough to never want to write a book with me again, but if I ever wrote one there is no one else I would want on the project!

Sara Gaviser Leslie:

In addition to the great partners Chris noted above, I’d like to thank all of my family and especially my little guys: Devin, Sammy, and Theo. Thank you for your unwavering support. Most importantly, to my husband, Josh, you have patience beyond belief. You kept me going and always pointed me toward the light at the end of the tunnel, even when it was incredibly hard to see!

Lisa Solomon, Jennifer Aaker, Sarah Milstein, Joanna Strober, and Lyn Denend: your guidance on the writing and publishing process was invaluable. Allison Kaplan, Amy Abrams, Bethany Coates, Charlotte Zdanowski, Dawn Wells Nadeau, Debbie Winick, Hannah Park, Helen Plewman, Kim Jabal, Lisa Sweeney, Sharon Leslie, Stacy Goldman, and Susannah Shimkus, the 738 crew, and, of course, my 5:50 a.m. team: you encouraged me always and ceaselessly listened to me when the deadline seemed to move further and further into the future.

Finally, this project would never have come to fruition without the humor, intellect, foresight, optimism, and diplomacy of Chris Morace. I feel very fortunate to have had an excellent partner— and friend—in this process. You always believed we could do this. You were right.

CHAPTER 1

DISRUPTION IN THE ENTERPRISE

WHAT, WHY, AND THE CHOICES COMPANIES MUST MAKE

NEW TECHNOLOGIES SPUR THE PACE OF CHANGE

The inventions that humankind has hatched just during the past five years are appearing exponentially faster than developments in the last 50 years or in any period since the beginning of the Industrial Age. During the Stone Age (ended between 4500 and 2000 BCE), hunter-gatherers and, later, farmers, developed tools to help them do their jobs—stone cutting tools and arrowheads among other simple inventions. Later, in the Bronze Age (ended around 1200 BCE), and then the Iron Age (ended around 200 CE), humans invented the catapult, gunpowder, the clock, and the wheel. These machines were monumental to human progress, but they are nothing compared to today’s technological innovations. In mere years or even over months, humans are launching multiple inventions, many of which are more revolutionary than those the people of the Stone Age hatched over a period of 3.4 million years.¹

Futurist Raymond Kurzweil, in his book The Singularity Is Near, highlights the evolution of communications technologies as proof that the speed of technology adoption is rapidly accelerating:

A half millennium ago, the product of a paradigm shift such as the printing press took about a century to be widely deployed. Today, the products of major paradigm shifts, such as cell phones and the World Wide Web, are widely adopted in only a few years’ time.²

Technological Innovation: The Industrial Age and Rapid Development

The Industrial Revolution took machinery up several notches. Individuals who lived through this period—beginning around 1700—saw magic everywhere. Who could have imagined the ability of anesthesia to blunt pain during a medical procedure, the detail of a photograph to help you remember a scene exactly as it was, the power of a telegraph to send a message across the country, or the speed at which a spinning jenny could turn wool into yarn?

Some of the most remarkable inventions were in the area of transportation. Steam-powered trains and ships, automobiles, and electrical messaging devices replaced horse-based travel, saved hundreds of man-hours, and gave people the ability to interact with others far beyond their immediate environments.

Communications technologies offer the best evidence that the pace of change is increasing. For thousands, if not millions, of years, humans used messengers and signal fires to communicate over long distances. The only ways to convey information were face-to-face or with visual signals. Even in 1845, it took President James K. Polk six months to get a message from Washington, D.C., to California.

The telegraph quickly displaced the Pony