James Whitmoyer, Business Applications Manager, Sony

Title:  Going Social with SharePoint at Sony

Background:

[These are my quick notes, complete with  (what I hope is no more than) the occasional typo and grammatical error.  Please excuse those. Thanks!

From time to time, I'll insert my own editorial comments - exercising the prerogatives of the blogger.  I'll show those in brackets. ]

Notes:

• Initial focus of this presentation was on the external social media efforts.
• How do they bring social media internally?  Marketing to employees is similar to marketing to customers?
• He noted that they are using SharePoint, but it doesn’t look like SharePoint.
• They use My Sites as a way for employees to build their own brand within Sony
• Use Office Communicator with presence to connect employees while reducing e-mail.
• They encourage people to create “My Sites” by featuring best pictures from individual My Sites on a central site called “Sony Source.”
• They are encourage every employee to blog.  They search through My Sites to find and promote interesting blogs.  Many employees are blogging about work-related content rather than leisure activities.
• They have included an activity stream via SP 2010. This is a more effective way for teams to be in touch – they prefer it to e-mail.
• They encourage employees to build their own brand
• They have a virtual org chart that shows where everyone sits in the food chain and other colleagues who might be able to help. This has led to a huge improvement in responding to queries.
• Why does this matter?
• Externally, this provides a better way to reach customers where they spend their time
• Internally it reflects how people live in their private lives.  Therefore, it improves personal productivity.