Cahrs Connect Handouts

The General Mills Global Hallway – Collaboration and Learning in Enterprise 2.0”

 September, 2011

2 John Mancini, President of AIIM, February, 2011

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So how did we get started?

• Innovation Sabbatical

• Social Business Team (SBT)–Cross functional/volunteer–Still running today

• Worked together on challenges, not on technology

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This is what we heard employees need…

The General Mills’ Business Case

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“We have a strong hallway

culture. How do we scale that around the

world?”

“ I just wish there were

one easy way to tap into all the

knowledge that the General Mills community has”

“ If only General Mills knew what

General Mills knows!”

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It’s not about the technology, or is it?

• Strong partnership with Microsoft– SharePoint 2010 integration

• Chose NewsGator SocialSites

• Matched our needs and provided a common platform

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Launch Plan

• In Beta first, beginning in November, 2010– Platform co-ownership in HR, IS, and ITQ

• Why Beta?– An agile way to iterate through opportunities and

challenges with people, process, and technology– Evaluate platform and gather success stories and tips

for individual and community users– Balancing usability, retention, and security,

governance.

• February 1– Global availability, soft launch, telling the story

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Are people using it?

• User stats tell part of the story – 2,141 unique active users– 6,710 micro blogs posts– 2,478 questions answered– 1,845 documents loaded

• Community stats also part of success– 186 public communities, 91 private

communities– 4,800 community “joins”– Trained 300+ community managers: In person

in Minneapolis and live meeting for India, France, Argentina, UK, etc.

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How does Connect fit with other tools?

• E-mail? Really? Overused and misused

• Instant Messaging? Informal, deleted immediately

• Live Meeting? Created for meetings and sharing content, no good beyond events

• SharePoint? A whole platform, still great for team/project sites and document repositories

• Unmet needs for collaboration, knowledge retention, and social learning

Social Learning

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Social Learning isn’t new right?

• Social learning happens without technology…

• What if Great Managers were social?

• General Mills Institute program communities

• Connecting the decentralized training community– Bringing functional training leaders together– Giving them a platform to reach learners

WWMZ do?

• Would we allow the crowd to compare/contrast two managers against each other?

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A Community of Great Managers

• Idea from Accenture’s “30-day challenge”– A girl, a blog, and 30 days to business impact

• Our own social experiment– Planning for managers to share ideas with each

other through a community – Recruiting 30 bloggers to share insights over

60-day period– We’ve already gathered some ideas/input from

a “live” jam session with managers

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General Mills Institute

• Ask questions about pre-work, share learning– Six different learning communities integrated

with SharePoint 2010 – everything in one place!– Even have a pre-work tracker so you can check

your progress against peers

• Getting Things Done® from David Allen, Co.– 478 members, 2nd most popular community– Facilitate discussions, get support from peers,

share tips and best practices

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Communities for Everyone

• Training & Learning Community, 274 members

• Connecting Learning Leaders across the Company

• Managing E-learning projects

• Provide workspace for SME’s and Development team in Mumbai

• Launch of Influence Training in ITQ

• Download study guide, watch modules, post ideas/questions

• QRO Academy, 144 members

• Replaces e-mails and newsletters with community space

Growing PainsThings we still haven’t solved

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Community Management

• Have– Governance– Approval

• Need– Full time community

managers– Mature communities

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Balance

• Social (non-business)– iDevice community success– Employee clubs– Broader audience relevance

• Business– Projects– Enterprise-wide initiatives– Change the way we work

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Sustain

• Culture not technology– I.S. builds the house– Users are the interior

designers

• Led by all, owned by none– Nature of SBT led to

sponsors, not owners

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What’s next?

• Cultural change– Technology isn’t magic– Building adoption

slowly – Collaboration across

silos– Social learning– Iterate the platform