Social technologies in business

Inhoudstafel

Prologue: The Mandarin Oriental
Foreword: Lee Bryant
How to squeeze the juice out of this book
A kick in the butt: Why you should not promote social

1. Ideas
2. Tools
3. Methods
4. Case Studies

Our international team of co-authors
Blogs, books and podcasts that inspired us

Lee Bryant (UK) is passionate about using social technology to put humans front and centre of the way we do things in the twenty-first century, and believes social networks, not bureaucracies, are the organising principle of the digital era. He co-founded Headshift in 2002 to investigate new uses for social technology inside companies and organisations, which became a leading international social business consultancy and was acquired in 2009. In 2013, he co-founded Post*Shift to explore the intersection between new social technologies and new thinking on the structure, culture and practice of work, with the aim of creating organisations fit for the twenty-first century, and also Shift*Base to produce learning content and tools.

Damian Corbet (UK) has 20 years experience in public relations and communications, with a focus on business-to-business (B2B) markets. His work with senior B2B leaders led him to realise that there was a glaring lack of understanding about the potential of social networks for their and their organisations' development. This led him to create The Social C-Suite, which aims to educate and inspire senior leaders about the power of social media. He regularly interviews CEOs from across the world about their use of social media and is now writing a book on the subject. Damian is also a respected speaker and has shared his ideas about social leadership at the Social Branding Summit in Istanbul and C&IT Live in London.

Isabel De Clercq (°1968) komt uit een Oost-Vlaams dorpje en woont nu in Antwerpen. Als kind bezocht ze elke zaterdag de plaatselijke bibliotheek. Ze werd er verliefd op taal. Isabel is de auteur van het managementboek Social Technologies in Business en van de verhalenbundel Gekruld. Het hybride werken is haar derde boek.

Isabel is oprichter van Connect | Share | Lead en fan van het Hybride Werken omdat het al haar favoriete topics samenbrengt. Levenslang leren door asynchrone kennisdeling, productiviteit door focus en technologie, digitale taal en zelfbeschikking. Het zit er allemaal in.

Veerle Eylenbosch (Belgium) is a Technical Service Engineer at Daikin Europe N.V. After several years of pure technical product support, she shifted over to the area of Service Projects. In this new function, she's constantly searching for improvements that can make the Daikin Service Organisation excel. She believes in the power of people, which was one of the drivers to set up a pilot social business collaboration platform, bringing Service experts at headquarters and in the European, Middle East & Africa region closer together.

Ragnar Heil (Germany) works at Microsoft Corp. as Partner Channel Lead for Office 365, covering Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. He has studied Educational Science and Sociology in Heidelberg, Germany (MA), and is member of the Senate at the Professional Association of German Sociologists. He is founding member of the Working Out Loud Community and the Responsive Organisation Movement in Germany. He has published two books on educational science and has contributed to several books with articles about social intranets, digital business and brand ambassadors as guides in the information age. He is passionate about social media, improving business collaboration and reinventing productivity.

Working in different teams at the Belgian KBC bank on process related topics, Geert Nijs (Belgium) became passionate about the possibilities of social collaboration. He shifted from being a formal process thinker towards an “employee of the future” embracing new, social collaboration tools. “This shift wasn’t only about giving up the search for control, it was about completely reinventing myself and opening myself to this new world.” Geert successfully enforced Hans de Zwart’s (Shell) social experiment at KBC, and today he gives talks about this topic at seminars and organisations. Previously involved in different network organisation and community building initiatives at KBC, Geert now works as a Learning Architect for the corporate L&D department at KBC. He also advises other companies in their social collaboration journey.

Paul Miller (UK) is CEO and Founder of the Digital Workplace Group (DWG). His book, The Digital Renaissance of Work: Delivering digital workplaces fit for the future (co-authored with Elizabeth Marsh), was shortlisted for the CMI Management Book of the Year 2016 Award. Paul's previous book was The Digital Workplace: How technology is liberating work.

He has given many talks on the digital future of work for organisations including Microsoft, IKEA, Google, Accenture, Harvard Business Review, Cisco, European Commission, Adobe and Oxford University. He was a Judge for the Duke of York’s Inspiring Digital Enterprise Awards. Paul is Executive Producer of the 24-hour global digital experience Digital Workplace 24 and also hosts industry podcast “Digital Workplace Impact”.

Portrayed in Forbes as “driving some of the most award-winning and buzz-worthy employee initiatives at Sanofi Pasteur”, Céline Schillinger (US) directs Innovation and Engagement for Global Quality at Sanofi Pasteur. A leader in collaborative projects for business and organisational transformation, Céline has earned many awards for her innovative engagement initiatives in the pharma world. One of the 40 Women to Watch Over 40 (“Women who are reinventing, and disrupting, and making an impact”); French Businesswoman of the year (2013); a blogger and a TEDx & BIF Summit speaker. Céline is passionate about people-centric innovation to modernise the business environment and increase performance.

Simon Terry (Australia) provides consulting, advice, speaking and thought leadership to global clients through his own consulting practice, and as a Charter Member of Change Agents Worldwide – a network of progressive and passionate professionals, specialising in Future of Work technologies and practices. The focus of Simon’s practice is assisting organisations to transform innovation, collaboration, learning and leadership. Digital transformation and the future of work require purposeful, agile and collaborative teams, with all members able to lead responses to customer needs and market opportunities. Simon has been recognised as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional in Office Servers and Services for his work on collaboration adoption.

Christophe Vanden Eede (Belgium) has change written all over his career. After his studies in Law and general management, he started at Electrabel (now ENGIE), a Belgian electric company, to help shift the mindset from servicing delivery points to servicing customers. Later, he joined the HR department to build the employer brand and set up a channel strategy for the sourcing of new recruits. This is where he got the digital microbe. After 5 years he became L&D manager and set out to implement a new learning culture. He also participated in a project to help boost digital transformation, first for Belgium and later for all European units. In January 2016 he became Chief Learning Officer at ENGIE (Benelux), and since 1 May 2017 he is the Director of Talent Management for the Telenet Group.

Jan Van Oudendycke (Belgium) is a highly accomplished senior-level manager with proven success in managing power generating assets to enhance safety, productivity and profitability. He has international expertise in managing new and established coal-fired, gas turbine and renewable plants.

Today he is the Director of Knowledge Management at ENGIE, an international energy and services company with headquarters in Paris. He implemented a global collaboration platform that allows all employees to be connected in the digital workplace. He is an expert in knowledge management adoption and change.

He is a highly appreciated speaker at international conferences dealing with collaboration and communities (e.g. “Intra.NET Reloaded” in London, and “Social Business Collaboration” in Berlin).

Mathias Vermeulen heeft intussen al meer dan vijftien jaar ervaring in de wereld van leren en ontwikkelen, in uiteenlopende rollen: als verkoper van trainingen, als interne L&D-businesspartner, als zaakvoerder van een klein bedrijfje en als co-founder van een EdTech-start-up. Vanuit die verschillende insteken heeft hij zich de voorbije jaren hoofdzakelijk gespecialiseerd in de kruising van leren en technologie en probeert hij in die hoedanigheid in binnen- en buitenland zijn ideeën en mening te verspreiden.

En dat die mening best wel geapprecieerd wordt, blijkt uit de vele spreekopdrachten die hij sinds 2013 heeft mogen doen.

Daarnaast is Mathias ook bestuurslid van VOV Lerend Netwerk, de grootste L&D-community in België en treedt hij op als gastdocent bij onder andere VIVES en Brugge Business School.

Rita Zonius (Australia) is a communications professional at Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) Banking Group, one of the world's top 50 banks. Rita has more than 20 years' experience in corporate communications.  She leads ANZ's Internal Digital Communications team, established to support the bank to realise the business benefits of enterprise social technologies, including driving a collaborative and engaged culture across ANZ’s workforce of more than 50,000 staff globally.

In addition to her accountabilities for leading enterprise social, Rita governs ANZ's global intranet platform to ensure continuous improvement initiatives are aligned to international best practice user experience. She’s also focused on supporting communication professionals to realise opportunities to reposition their careers for the new social and digital economy.

Alison Williams (Belgium – and our editor!) has been setting up social networks even before social existed: in 2001 she coordinated a group of local stakeholders (Consejo Cívico Consultor), at BASF Spain, that exchanged information on the company’s activities and concerns of neighbouring communities.

Later, in Brussels, she set up a network (online, but still not social) of national associations at EFMA (now Fertilizers Europe), so these could exchange their own expertise and experiences in the industry. At Wolters Kluwer she introduced “Boke en Babbel”, a bottom-up “lunch and learn” where colleagues have a chat on a topic relevant to the organisation while nibbling on a sandwich. But for this book, she is our editor and cheerful, social enthusiast. Master in English Philology, Post-graduate in Editing Technical Texts, and more than 10 years’ experience in bringing clarity to obscure jargon and intricate formulations.

"This book showcases a deep understanding of the essential connection between technology and cultural change, and how this is the ‘fuel’ of the most innovative organizations out there."
- Peter Hinssen – entrepreneur, advisor, lecturer and author

"This book is at the very intersection between technology and human beings. Thanks to technology, we are all interconnected; we grow as professionals; and we can transform our organisations. Read how technology drives business success and, ultimately, transforms the society we live in."
- Saskia Van Uffelen – CEO of Ericsson BeLux and Digital Champion Belgium

"Which section did I like the most? This is very difficult if not impossible to tell. I liked the chapters on tools by Mathias Vermeulen a lot. They are covering all important topics and they are a very good starting point if you are heading for Social Tools. Isabel managed to attract my attention for topics like Knowledge Sharing and Working out loud. And thanks a lot for sharing your learning’s on how to navigate in a world of too much information. And finally the use cases from Céline Schillinger or Geert Nijs that show that you don’t need to run huge transformation programs to move ahead but that the journey can start with very small steps and more important it starts with yourself."
- Hans-Juergen Sturm – Amadeus IT Group in Business Information Management

"Social Technologies in Business offers something for everyone: answers to objections, ideas for getting started, a review of tools, methods for implementation, case studies with “stealable” concepts.  I especially appreciate the realistic view: there’s honest discussion about barriers and failure factors, warnings about things not to do, and the reality of endeavoring to engage in enterprise-wide anything. This is an excellent resource for those hoping to influence and maybe even help transform their organizations." (Klik hier voor de volledige review)
- Jane Bozarth - Elearning Coordinator and author

"Whether it is how to convince management, how to lead in social or practical tips to win adoption and value the book is full of rich detail that other practitioners can use." (Bekijk hier de volledige review)
- Simon Terry – Consultant: innovation, collaboration, learning & leadership

"Zullen de ideeën van dit boek ook eens grondig bediscuteerd worden met ondernemers die zich tot nog toe ver hielden van alles wat naar socialtech zweemt? Komt er een tweede of een ander boek waarin men een aantal (top)ondernemers hierover op de rooster legt? Hoe groot is de tractie van deze visie bij ondernemend Vlaanderen, in het ‘la Flandre profonde’ van het bedrijfsleven? Dat zou ik dolgraag willen weten. Omdat het ook wel belangrijk is, niet?" (Lees hier de volledige review)
- Philip Verhaeghe – freelance redacteur voor ondernemingsgerichte publicaties

"Social technologies in business is een prettig geschreven boek. Hoofdstukken worden vaak geopend met citaten, en afgesloten met de belangrijkste punten samengevat. Ik ben met name enthousiast over de laatste twee delen van dit boek. Het boek leest ook lekker weg vanwege het enthousiasme van de auteurs." (Lees de volledige review hier)
- Wilfred Rubens – zelfstandig en onafhankelijk adviseur, projectleider, blogger en docent 

"This is an excellent, accessible book on social leadership and how companies can embrace social media & platforms to further their business - flatten the organisation, encourage collaboration, make communication travel further. Isabel makes the case very simply and in a compelling manner for why all leaders and businesses should embrace the social age. The book is well structured with lots of practical advice and good summaries: even the most untechnical leader will find it an easy read and learn practical ways to kick start a social strategy for themselves and their business." 
- Paul Frampton Calero - CEO of Havas Media Group UK & Ireland

"As soon as I started reading, lots of questions came to my mind re implementation, how-to’s and other questions. I immediately thought I could collate those questions and post them as a discussion guide to accompany the book. The questions never stopped coming from the start to the end of the book. This is definitely not saying the book is lacking rather it is saying that it fully engaged me throughout and got my mind in overdrive in responding to the content." (Bekijk de volledige review)
- Simon Fogg - IT Management, Programme and Project Management

"I was chuffed to see “social” presented almost as a synonym of knowledge sharing. I have been working in knowledge management for many years. Most of the time I have to defend knowledge management as a lot more than documenting lessons learned, creating inventories of who knows what, implementing taxonomies for knowledge retrieval, etc. The way this book subtly talks about sharing of knowledge as a social behaviour which can therefore benefit from social technologies, just put a big, big smile on my face." (Lees de volledige review)
- Ana Neves - Partner of Knowman; Organiser of Social Now

"Het gevoel na dat u dit boek heeft verorberd? Hoop." - Gert Verlinden op de blog van HR Magazin, 24 juli 2017

"Now, why a paperback book about social technologies? I just love books, Isabel says. It is one of the charms of this essay: personal, fueled with feelings and anecdotes, it has this little madness that echoes what we, social aficionados, perceive about social technologies: they’re much more than technologies. They’re an enabler for enhanced person-to-person connection at scale, a catalyst for more humane organizations – if we want to." (Lees de volledige review hier)
- Céline Schillinger - Head, Quality Innovation & Engagement at Sanofi Pasteur 

Verschenen over dit boek:

• Weg met hiërarchie? Deze social tech-experte ziet het zo - Bloovi, 27 november 2017
• “DE DIGITALISERING GEEFT WERKNEMERS HUN STEM TERUG”: waarom 'social technologies' ook op de werkvloer zullen doorbreken - Vacature mei 2017
• Leiderschap in de digital workplace - MT.be, 23 juni 2017
• Social technologies bepalen hoe we (samen)werken - Whiskeys.be, 28 juni 2017