How social media fits into BT’s business
Mark Morrell has been BT’s intranet manager for more than seven years. In that time the communications firm has implemented a range of social media tools, including a business-wide blogging platform, BTpedia wiki, a media platform for audio and video podcasts, while the CEO hosts online chats with employees. Here he describes how social media fits in.
The BT intranet is defined in the broadest sense of the term. The moment you leave your desktop – that’s the intranet. Formal content, applications,
and blogs to name a few functions, all belong to and within the intranet and are treated with a set of standards, some of which are appropriate to all kinds of content, and some of which only apply to formal content.
In other words, the BT intranet is viewed as the “online environment” for staff, as opposed to just a website, surrounded by other applications. This
is a more holistic view than many organizations take, but it’s a vital one if there’s to be decent optimization and integration of all tools, including social media. People aren’t concerned with the distinction, it’s all one and the same.
On the standards issue, formal content such as policies and forms, have to go through an approval process. BTpedia, for example does not, and formal and informal content is differentiated by different color banners on the top of the page.
As intranet manager I’m responsible for all related plans, strategies and standards. We’re a small, centralized team of four that looks after key internal websites including the homepage, directory, and search. There are thousands of publishers of formal content, and many more who have posted informal content such as comments on blogs.
BTpedia
BTpedia is BT’s corporate wiki and it goes from strength to strength. At the time of writing, there are around 2,500 articles on BTpedia, and it
started in 2006. We’ve never pushed it in terms of encouragement or publicity. It now has a link on the homepage at the top level of the intranet and the latest three articles on the homepage. It’s not just used by early adopters either, it’s used by “normal” people, and is seen as just another tool they may use if they think it’s the best source of
information.
Social media in BT has now moved on; it’s matured, it’s accepted and it’s in the bloodstream
In terms of new articles being created, there are peaks and troughs, but roughly there’s a new article every day. The most popular article is about
employee recognition, which has 100,000 views so far. The content hasn’t changed for some time but the main things that change or increase are the
links.
So why isn’t all the information about employee recognition on the main intranet?
The employee recognition policy is on the intranet, while contextual information around it is on the wiki. An example would be, if you want to find out about BT Centre (BT’s head office in London), you can go to the intranet to find the address, but BTpedia has informal travel information about how to actually get there. For example, get the number 38 bus if you’re coming from this station and if you’re coming from another Tube station watch out for roadworks on
these dates.
Differentiating between formal and user generated content
People add context to formal information, that’s how it works. But when people search for something on the intranet, the search results page shows the difference between what’s formal content and what’s collaborative opinion.
Across the sites, the global navigation bar is a different colour – purple for formal content; yellow for collaborative opinion. A disclaimer clarifies the purpose of collaborative information. Formal content policies don’t apply to BTpedia, a different color is a clear enough indication. Our research shows people make that distinction when they’re viewing the site. The search result distinguishes between formal and informal.
BTpedia is recognized at a senior level. No articles are owned by senior managers but the wiki is simply accepted as part of the information furniture.
Social media in BT has now moved on; it’s matured, it’s accepted and it’s in the bloodstream
Podcast Central
Podcast Central is our podcasting platform and covers video and audio files. It’s largely based on the YouTube experience. We’ve tried to remove any sort of barriers to participation so it’s very easy to use.
There’s not as much content as BTpedia, but we wouldn’t expect there to be because it’s not as simple as just writing and publishing written content. There are hundreds of podcasts, and new ones show up regularly, while the number of episode views is growing.
We previously had formal face-to-face training, however, there’s now been budget spent to produce high quality videos for training, for example. Colleagues are now doing short episodes to “show and tell” with examples. Short and snappy items break down training into simple informal guidance. The quality isn’t of a professional standard, but it’s good enough to get people over their challenges.
Aside from the real benefits like the low production costs, the speed at which you can publish something, and the breadth of content, anyone who’s new to BT can click on a quick “show and tell”. You can see the screen, walk throughs, get technology and even management help. It’s interesting to note that the best Podcast Central example is a guide about your role as a people manager, another is about listening skills.
In terms of producing them, colleagues are finding that the first podcast generally proves to be the biggest challenge. You have to plan, learn and make a few mistakes but once someone produces one podcast they come back again and again. We’re finding that people are using a variety of technologies to produce video and audio, as they’re doing them both at work and at home.
Blogging with Wordpress
We have a blog platform called Blog Central that uses Wordpress. There are over 500 blogs on there at the moment. Some are more business team-orientated, but they’re, mostly individual, opinion oriented blogs. Some people have posted one or two entries, but the vast majority are active.
They’re blogging regularly, comments are being made and we can see from the traffic that people are using them.
It’s very effective because something may emerge in an opinion that comes well before the finished article. It’s also searchable and the latest
three posts are featured on the homepage. Initially there were a few people saying “I’m not sure you want to do that”, but ultimately it’s worked.
Reviewing BT’s social media policy and guidelines
BT’s social media guidelines were created two years ago. Bear in mind at that time there was lots of nervousness within the organization about how it would go and how it would affect security.
I think it’s now time for a review to shorten the policy and make it far more balanced. We can now state the benefits. Social media in BT has
moved on; it’s matured, it’s accepted and it’s in the bloodstream, so we can update the guidelines accordingly.
One thing, however, won’t change. We don’t allow anonymous blogs or wiki articles. People are happy to be named and be responsible for what they say. It’s a sign of our maturity.
We don’t allow anonymous blogs or wiki articles. People are happy to be named and be responsible for what they say. It’s a sign of our maturity.
Live instant message chats with BT’s chief executive
Live online CEO chats have continued with Ian Livingstone, the new chief executive. The difference is his predecessor used to go to the media suite with two people to support him. Ian now does it all from his office on his own. Emails come in, he replies and he gets through them at a rate of knots.
Senior management blogs
Some of BT’s senior managers also blog giving their views on business decisions. The Wholesale chief executive has a blog but it’s more of a “have you got any concerns” style forum. People raise issues or questions and it’s less of a typical blog.
Each of these channels, be they blogs or forums, have a two-way means of working. It’s classic social media and a good way to address concerns and to give and receive feedback. Having this information published online and having people up there on the site makes senior managers more approachable, brings people down to earth and removes those barriers.
Social media is an evolution of communication
I think any good senior manager knows that you have to work with people to be effective. Social media is a far more visible way of doing that and it means you have to raise your game.
When you’re engaging with a line of communication that someone in your team has triggered, you have to be more agile in thinking and behavior, you have to be quicker to respond, and aware of the channels themselves. It’s person to person. You reply to a person’s tweet rather than a formal blog post, for example. You have to understand the subtleties of different technologies and match how people want to communicate, but with these channels, people have to be even better at communicating, and that scares some.
Leaving BT aside, there’s a wider issue with the internal communication community in most organizations. We still think we’re the only ones who can communicate to a business and many of us don’t want to adjust. But we have to realize people are talking about the same things separately from internal communication. For example, if communication is aiming for a big bang launch, people start talking about it before that happens, so what can you do?
Communication people say, “People can’t do that”, but the fact of the matter is they can and they are. In any major organization of a decent size, trying to control what’s being said is just impossible. For example, when a major announcement about an organization is made people may have differing views and opinions about it. Discussion erupts around that and people should be able to debate – it’s a legitimate conversation. Discussions and comments happen, people have opinions. It’s good that people can express that and it’s good to find that within certain issues there are smaller issues bubbling under that come to light and can be dealt with sooner rather than later. The alternative is it can become a major issue later and needs time and
effort to resolve.
Looking ahead
In the future I’d love to see the situation where at least half the people in BT contribute content and their views via some kind of social media tool. We’re nowhere near that at the moment, but we’re ahead of many organizations. It’s when it becomes natural to add to a wiki, help out with an issue, fire out a message to people; it’s more about the way we work together than anything else.
This case study originally appeared in the Melcrum report, How to use social media to solve critical internal communication issues. Visit www.melcrum.com/products/research_reports for more information.
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