Connecting Organizational Silos: Taking Knowledge Flow Management to the Next Level with Social Media

TRAINING PORTFOLIO

As social media tools are usually quite straightforward to use, it is easy to think that training for an ESN is completely unnecessary. However, underestimating the need for proper training is one of the big traps that a team running such platform could fall into. While it is true that getting used to the features is usually a quick process—especially for basic functions like posting, liking, commenting, and connecting—those with minimal social media experience are likely to face a steeper learning curve. It is also easy to underestimate the need for business-oriented training. Users will need to learn how such a tool best fits into their business environment. Some of the key training topics that come to mind are:

• How to incorporate the platform into the portfolio of existing collaboration and communication tools.
• Guidelines and best practices on what to post where.
• Naming conventions for groups, tags, and titles.
• How to use notifications to balance being informed with getting overloaded.
• How to use the platform for different types of business problems.

Some users will figure out the answers to those questions by themselves, but many can really benefit from being introduced to some best practices as they become familiar with the platform.

Training can come in many different ways. A typical set of training methods is shown in Exhibit 5.3.

Exhibit 5.3 Training Portfolio

As the target audience for an ESN is basically the whole organization, training needs to ...