Who can you turn to in your contacts book to ask for confidential advice and guidance about all things enterprise social network (ESN) related?
I regularly get emails from people asking for my opinion, but what if there was a whole room of your peers willing and able to share their stories?
Well now there is, and here to tell us all about a shiny new unconference – that you’re invited to – is comms pro Paul Thomas @tallpaul75. Over to you Paul…
Come and air your ESN successes and stresses
Rachel has invited me to write a post on her blog, which is incredibly gracious of her seeing as it is her idea (and that of her The Big Yak compadres in The IC Crowd) that we’ve stolen, belt and braces!
Alex Chapel @achapel01, from KPMG, Kim England @miss_england_19, from Pearson, and I have recently announced our plans to hold an ESN unconference, #ESNanon. It’s being held on 21 March at Pearson’s offices on The Strand, London.
This is the first in what we hope will be a series of events dedicated to those who work in the ever-growing world of ESN.
So why an unconference?
Paul Thomas
I have a love/hate relationship with conferences and networking events. Attend a good one and I walk away invigorated, a spring in my step, a song in my heart, ready to embrace the challenges I’ve taken away.
Attend a bad one and pretty much the reverse is true.
In most cases the conferences I attend are neither altogether good nor altogether bad, they just don’t do a good enough job of designing themselves around the most important people – their attendees.
Usually it’s plenary, coffee, plenary, lunch, workshop, coffee, workshop, close, networking drinks.
Coffee is interrupted by vendors selling you something you don’t need, lunch is the usual juggling of plate, glass and conversation which generally ends up with you not enjoying any of its constituent parts.
Alex and Kim
It was at one of these events where Alex and I sat at the end talking about how we’d not managed to have many conversations at all with our peers. The whole event had moved so fast that actual conversation had only played a very small part.
“What we need is an unconference” I said.
Quickly rewind…
I met Alex a couple of years ago when introduced by Euan Semple @euan. I was probably bleating on about how hard my job was proving, leading Grant Thornton‘s social business approach, and he suggested we meet.
Alex works for KPMG and collaboration isn’t necessarily the first word that springs to mind when you mention our firm’s names in the same breath, but here we were.
For our initial meetings, in the pub, were joined by a couple of others struggling with Enterprise Social Networks in large organisations. Thank God beer was involved!
What followed were a couple of downloading sessions where we shared the challenges we were facing and offered each other advice on how to overcome them.
Back to the point Paul…
#TheBigYak is organised by the trinity of Rachel, Jenni Wheller and Dana Leeson (You can find us @theICcrowd and read about the event here – Rachel). It was clear we needed a third Musketeer and so we spoke to Kim England at a networking event, briefly outlining the idea and agreeing to meet for coffee.
One coffee and one lunch later we had a rough plan, a name for the event (ESN Anonymous seemed to reflect the peer therapy sentiment) and a location.
And so now all we need to do is to replicate that peer sharing at scale. 70 people in one place, on a Saturday, willing to contribute, share and help each other through a wide range of challenges and conundrums.
We’ll follow the rules of the unconference, allowing our attendees to lead the agenda, employing the rule of two feet and making sure everyone leaves feeling they’ve learnt something or contributed in some way.
There’s so much to discuss including:
- how to write the business case for ESN
- getting buy-in at senior level
- approach to implementation
- launch strategies
- big questions around proving long-term value
- interpreting your numbers
- plus managing your community.
I’m always blown away by the amount of egoless sharing that goes on between communications professionals and their dedication to doing a great job.
We’ve chosen a Saturday so we get the really dedicated. ‘give up my Saturday’ comms pros who will bring immense value to the room. All yours for a tenner (£10) and a Saturday!
So, if that sounds good…and come on, it really does…sign up at our Eventbrite page now and we’ll see you for a really good chat on 21 March!
Post author: Paul Thomas.
Thanks Paul. I have signed up to attend, babysitters for my toddler and newborn twins permitting, and hope to make it along. Hats off to Paul, Kim and Alex as I know how much hard work it takes to organise such an event, especially alongside the day job.
Even though one would assume there’s less work as it’s unstructured, I promise you that’s not the case! But the beauty of an unconference is that you get out what you put into it. Plus you should leave with your questions answered as you help shape the content.
Are you going to #ESNAnon? If not, you can follow the conversations via the hashtag #ESNanon before, during and after the event on Twitter.
You can get your ticket for just under £10 here.
Further reading
Want to find out more about enterprise social networks and using social media internally? See the links below for articles I’ve published about them over the six years I’ve been writing my blog for.
You can also discover what events are coming up for comms pros to attend globally by checking out my comms calendar.
Plus save money off PR Week’s PR360 event simply by being a reader of my blog – see my exclusive deal.
Here are the links:
- Community management basics for IC pros
- How you can use apps for internal comms
- Blog posts tagged ESN on All Things IC
- 400+ case studies on using social media internally
- By me: Why use enterprise social networks for internal communication?
- On my blog: 300+ social media policies and videos
- On my blog: Defining social business
- My YouTube playlist of social media policies
- Creating the conversation: strategies for internal communication (features interview with me)
- Everything I’ve published to date about Yammer (includes 69 case studies)
- On my blog: Centres of excellence for social media?
- On my blog: How many social media channels do you know?
- On my blog: What’s in a name? Overview of my internal social media research with simply-communicate
- On my blog: My research into language of social media use reveals collaboration is king
Rachel Miller @AllthingsIC
First published on All Things IC blog 13 February 2015.
