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Daniel Benoni

How to Increase Internal Corporate Community Engagement - 7Summits Blog - 0 views

  • Internal communication and collaboration within intranets has documented solid ROI’s encouraging companies to look to it more and more for increased innovation and decreased costs.
  • Q. So how do you activate your internal community to reach a positive ROI? A. Facilitate Employee Engagement within the platform. A successful company and a thriving corporate culture doesn’t come from an org chart and people identified by numbers it comes from HUMANS, community, and allowing other users to benefit from each other’s expertise. Successful internal community participation directly and indirectly helps users across divisions and regions achieve their goals, find experts, and collaborate efficiently.
  • Successful internal community participation directly and indirectly helps users across divisions and regions achieve their goals, find experts, and collaborate efficiently.
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  • Internal communication and collaboration within intranets has documented solid ROI’s encouraging companies to look to it more and more for increased innovation and decreased costs. While many organizations have achieved these positive ROI’s, the process to realizing them is often challenged. Activating the community, and getting users to interact with each other becomes a difficult behavioral change, but one that is invaluable to the company as a whole and its employees
  • No one is participating because companies are simply using a different communication medium for the same old message. The voice of a community should reign relevant to the workers, not the executives, a common mistake we see with many failed internal community and intranet projects.  The fastest way to make a community relevant and to gain participation is to make it human and to upgrade the messaging to fit the distribution tool.
  • Identify ambassadors/ Experts: Don’t ignore those able to deliver genuine knowledge, identify them, embrace them, and give them room to speak in a HUMAN voice. Engagement breeds engagement. People who are most likely to contribute include natural leaders, employee’s active on other social networks, and members who had a say in the initial community planning stages,
  • Recognize these experts: Thank users who do participate. Many companies build communities prompting “Find an Expert” “Ask a Question” but the true value of the question and answer feature is getting people to answer those questions.
  • Invest in Information Architecture and User Experience: We’ve seen several communities that are lacking engagement because it is unclear to users HOW to engage.  Investments in information architecture are often over looked, even though they are vitally important. 
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    great article to support the need of an internal collaborative tool facilitating community engagement!!!
Daniel Benoni

Pro Bono Standards & Valuation - Pro Bono 101 - Resources - Lead Pro Bono - Taproot Fou... - 0 views

  • Pro Bono Standards & Valuation In partnership with the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), Taproot Foundation has developed standards for pro bono service to professionalize the field and ensure the consistent quality of services delivered to recipient organizations
  • Examples of Pro Bono Service HR team audits the HR systems of a nonprofit Finance team develops managerial accounting systems for a nonprofit Property development team helps a nonprofit secure and design office space Creative team develops a nonprofit's annual report Working as part of her company's pro bono commitment to a nonprofit, a professional tax accountant provides tax consulting to needy individuals in the community
  • Examples of Other Skills-Based Service (Not Pro Bono) Executive serves on a nonprofit board and gives informal advice Manager coaches high school student on a business plan competition An accountant independently provides free tax services to an individual in the community who can't afford tax advice Engineer designs a technology curriculum for an after school program Working as part of her company's pro bono commitment to a nonprofit, a software designer sets up staff computers (setting up computers is not within the core description of a software designer's professional expertise)
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  • Current Dollar Fair Market Valuation Pro bono work should be valued at Fair Market Value (FMV) and recorded as non-cash giving in CECP Survey Question 9.  FMV is the hourly or project cost that a paying client would incur for the same service. Companies are encouraged to use the three scenarios below to assist in determining the FMV of services rendered.  The dollar values in the scenarios below are based upon current U.S. salary data adjusted to account for geographic differences and typical fee-discounting practices.  CECP is currently unable to provide dollar-value assistance for non-U.S. pro bono service. Paid-release-time service that does not meet the pro bono criteria should be recorded at a dollar value that is appropriate to the skills involved in CECP Survey Question 22 (do not include pro bono hours in Question 22, as that would be double counting hours recorded in Question 9). When in doubt, the current Independent Sector rate is appropriate.
  • For companies with minimal pro bono tracking capabilities In the absence of employee skill area data and internal billing rates, CECP recommends using an estimate of $120 per hour for pro bono service projects. This is based on a rounded average billing rate for mid-level employees across disciplines, highlighted below. For companies with moderate pro bono tracking capabilities Companies that track the seniority level or skills deployed in pro bono projects should use the following chart to value pro bono hours if internal rates are not available.
  • For companies with robust pro bono tracking capabilities Companies should use their best internal billing information to determine the FMV of services rendered. These valuations should be adjusted to reflect billing differences by: geography, seniority level, rate discounting, employee skill area, etc. To do this, companies must track project metrics that affect billing rates so that an accurate, defensible valuation for pro bono contributions can be recorded. CECP strongly encourages companies to track pro bono to this level of specificity whenever possible.
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    GREAT INFORMATION. To read! - Use cases leads - "What to track in pro-bono" - References, etc. 
Aude-Olivia Dufour

Internship | Find Intern Jobs and Paid Internships | InternMatch - 0 views

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    we get reimbursed if they dont find us one
Daniel Benoni

Companies Adopt Gaming Techniques to Motivate Employees - WSJ.com - 0 views

  • Striving to make everyday business tasks more engaging, a growing number of firms, including International Business Machines Corp. and consulting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd., are incorporating elements of videogames into the workplace. They're deploying reward and competitive tactics commonly found in the gaming world to make tasks such as management training, data entry and brainstorming seem less like work. Employees receive points or badges for completing jobs or meeting time limits for assignments, for example. Companies also may use leaderboards, which let players view one another's scores, to encourage friendly competition and motivate performance, experts say. This "gamification" of the workplace, or "enterprise gamification" in tech-industry parlance, is a fast-growing business. Companies have used digital games for a number of years to help market products to consumers and build brand loyalty. What's emerging is using games to motivate their own employees.
  • Tech-industry research firm Gartner estimates that by 2014, some 70% of large companies will use the techniques for at least one business process. Market researcher M2 Research estimates revenue from gamification software, consulting and marketing will reach $938 million by 2014 from less than $100 million this year.
  • SAP even turned its gamification efforts into a game, holding a series of "Gamification Cups" to generate ideas for turning various business processes into games.
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  • 400,000 employees, roughly 40% of whom work from home or on the road, gaming is a way to help colleagues connect and stay engaged, explains Mr. Hamilton.
  • found that employees trained on video games learned more factual information, attained a higher skill level and retained information longer than workers who learned in less
  • Still, gaming experts say there are some pitfalls for companies when implementing games internally. Companies need to make sure that the games are designed to actually reward desired behaviors and are not just doling out meaningless awards or badges.
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    Gamification Article
Rachel Chaikof

Corporate Sustainability Driven by the Bottom Line - Forbes - 0 views

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    This article talks about how companies don't have tools to track their sustainability efforts, most notably these sections: Sustainability reporting is growing, but the tools are still developing. About one in four survey respondents use packaged software to track sustainability efforts, but most still use spreadsheets, emails, and phone calls. But the effectiveness of such efforts may be limited by internal systems that don't allow companies to effectively measure, track, and optimize their sustainability impacts or to understand and manage the risks of insufficient action.
Daniel Benoni

On the (un?)importance of design - 0 views

  • On the (un?)importance of design
  • We recently underwent a Cinderella-like transformation: A total redesign of the WP Engine website from despicable steaming pile of hideousness to a designed, thematic — dare I say artistic? — sleek new look. Does it matter?
  • It was such a contrast, customers emailed us saying “Thank God you fixed that horrible website. I was embarrassed when referring you guys to friends.” But hold on. They were still customers. And they still were referring us to friends. So I wonder, did it really matter?
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  • It must have mattered. Look how bad it was. Not only were the pages just ugly, they were peppered with database errors and CSS blowups
  • . It doesn’t prove design doesn’t matter, but it does suggest design may not be the deciding factor.
  • Can you see at what point in time we changed design?  No?  Must not have made a difference. Let’s look at time-on-site:
  • Nothing. But this is all superficial — what Really Matters is the Conversion Rate: are more or fewer people signing up each week:
  • Hmm. Looks like everything objective is saying “it doesn’t matter.” But as much as I respect and follow Lean Startup theory, objective measurements aren’t the only things that matter. Those customer emails matter too.
  • The other day we landed a large customer who said they could tell from our website that among our competitors we’re more mature and ready to handle a bigger customer like them. I can tell you — objectively — that we’re among the youngest of our competitors, and although I have a list of reasons why “we’re better,” the truth is that particular customer would probably be served just fine by several of those competitors. Was it the design that gave us that edge? Could be. Didn’t hurt, anyway.
  • Still, the more I look at the importance of design in the startups in my little career, the less it seems to matter.
  • Modern Lean Startup theory blares out from the red-tiled rooftops of Stanford: Seek the Data and Ye Shall Find! First the bounce-rate. If our website design was repulsive — literally — the bounce rate should now diminish. Here’s the data:
  • An even more extreme example comes from my second company ITWatchDogs. I displayed its old homepage at the magnificent Webstock design conference in Wellington earlier this year; the crowd whooped at our violent assault on the visual arts, complete with calliope menubar colors, two broken images tag above the fold, and a layout model that could be seen as a “grid” only after consuming a pillowcase of mushrooms:
  • But you’re anticipating the punch-line — ITWatchDogs grew every month, made millions of dollars, stole business from competitors with billion-dollar market caps (and professional-looking websites), and had a successful exit.
  • Of course it’s only fair to also point out some of the many instructive counter-examples: Hipmunk is the same thing as Orbitz or Travelocity — the only difference is amazing design, not just because it looks good but because it’s so useable. In the words of Joel Spoksly — the design “affords usability.” (P.S. Early Hipmunk team member Alexis Ohanian is so cool and smart and rich and funny and successful and good-looking that really he doesn’t deserve to be alive. (P.P.S. Hey flamers, for God’s sake it’s a joke! Don’t you realize I’m just sore from losing the Pecha Kucha competition to him?)) I always use and recommend Amy Hoy’s time zone tool only because it’s just nice to use and look at. (P.S. she also authors a terrific blog aimed at the solo entrepreneur.) Many people credit Mint’s smash success with their terrific design. Considering how many features were broken for how long, it’s hard to argue. 37signals documented — with data — how design changes results directly in more credit-card-swiping customers. It doesn’t get more “business value” than that. So where does that leave us in the “matters / doesn’t matter” question of design?
  • I think you can go either way, but you must decide whether or not you’re going to value design as core to your startup’s identity, and then act consistently. Here’s what I mean.
  • It’s clear from the outset that design is the only competitive advantage Hipmunk has over its competition. Specifically, by making the flight-search problem pleasurable and useable instead of feeling like you’re navigating pivot tables from Excel ’98.
  • They don’t have better data, better branding, better name, better SEO, or more money. Just better design, and not just easily-copyable incremental improvement, but a quantum leap better.
  • When design is that fundamental to the business — how it acquires and retains customers, garners attention and referrals, and distinguishes itself in the market — obviously design can be the most important thing.
  • Conversely, at ITWatchDogs the company’s internal and external culture was that we’re low-cost, friendly, approachable, regular guys, who understand exactly what you worry about, exactly what your budget is, and we nail it. The site might have looked bad, but our message couldn’t have been clearer.
  • But it is useful to decide where you come down on the question of design in your startup, because if it’s important you’d better work on that right now and develop a consistent culture of valuing design through-and-through, and if it’s not important you’d better decide what is important and nail those things all the harder, because you’ll be competing with people who are using superior design to cover up their lack of competency in those same areas.
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    Design, important or not
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