Mike Rhodin, Senior VP at IBM, presided over a customer- and thinker-packed keynote session on Tuesday morning. It was a very good session that underscored the need for strategy, culture, and adoption.

Here’s my notes.

Michael Chui, McKinsey Global Institute

1. Impact of social technologies in business.
– have been studying collaboration in the enterprise for over 10 years. Have been surveying thousands of executives about usage. How do we improve the efficiency of physical processes, or transaction processes. But how do we improve efficiency and effectiveness of knowledge workers.

2. Adoption
– The technology is there.
– Over the last 5 years. Have seen adoption increasing – blogs, wikis, microblogging.
– Industries – high tech yes. But also energy and others.

3. Micro-blogging. How are companies using this?
– You don’t know ahead of time how things will happen.
– Need a hypothesis about where things could take place.
– Knowledge sharing. Often bottom-up. Where do you find the value?
– Need to allow some scope for experimentation.
– A bit of trial and error.

4. Back to the technology. Which drives the most business benefit?
– Great variety of tools. What tools they emphasize. Which ones they put the most focus on.
– Speed of access to expertise.
– Decreased time to market, fer product development.
– Extended enterprise. To get to customers. Different touch points to customers.
– Product development and after sales service.

5. Hard business benefits. Hard ROI. Do you need to be willing to take a leap of faith?
– From the executives. Over 90% of the 70% executives using the technology – were getting measurable benefits. Most currently getting a small benefit. Some were getting huge benefits. Eg., from customers.
– Hypotheses – have become learning organizations. What you learn from one group leads to learning with others.

6. Networked enterprise – what about regulated industries?
– These tools connect with other parts of the business. Eg., connects with auditing and record keeping.
– Also with big data and analytics.

7. Analytics – what does this mean?
– Tremendous opportunity from analytics, beyond sentiment analysis.
– Can trun communication into content – capturing value from conversation.

8. IBM – talent moves in and out of organizations. Do social networks become the ongoing knowledge bases of the organizaiton?
– It’s a powerful idea. Communication can be mined as a corporate asset.
– Technologies allow you to extend beyond your own organization.

9. Revolution about how organizations work. We can’t take it for granted? How do you move forward?
– Surprising results. We thought the early adopters would be streaming ahead. But some were falling backwards. Need thoughtful, focused attention.
– “What’s in the work flow is what gets used.”
– You have to change the way you work, otherwise it doesn’t work. Have to change the processes.

Mike Rhodin
Becoming a social business requires a cultural shift.

TD Bank Group
– Video: Tim Hockey, President and CEO
– … we value transparency in our communication
– … we have to have current tools available. It was the right time for Connections.
– … employees can use their creativity and innovation more widely.
– … regulation approval hasn’t caught up yet.
– Wendy Arnott, VP Social Media and Digital Communications
– … newly created role – to encourage social media in the bank.
– … 85,000 employees, from >2350 points of presence. Sixth largest bank in North America.
– … How do we become a better bank?
– … employees always expect more. This will have a profound influence on how we communicate.
– … have made acquisitions. Need to bring these different groups together.
– … how do we win? Become a social business. And to change the game.
– … (a) engaged our customers in the conversations they were already having. Proactively reach out and respond.
– … (b) transparency is a core value. Allows the honest exchange of ideas and concepts. Eg., the decision making around opening on Sunday.
– … (c) amplifying great ideas. Eg., a customer service rep advocating the change from a paper-based process to an online process. Simplifies life for customers. It wasn’t a new idea, but social amplified the benefits. Eg., releasing a TD Mobile app – given to employees first, the could test it before going to customers.
– … (d) recognizing and dealing with the risks – “believe in the value not the problem.” Wanted to ask and explore the true risks, that were unique to social. Found that many were existing business risks. Got down to 5-6 risks that were just about social. Could develop plans to dealing with these.
– … five learnings: (a) leadership matters, (b) dedicated social business team, (c) need great partnerships with people across the business, (d) get into the weeds with some business teams – look for the reality, help them succeed, and (e) engage employees. Many want this.
– … it’s been great so far. But the opportunity remaining is huge.
– Glenda Crisp, VP and CIO
– … How do you build the coordination across the organization?
– … Governance – usual governance. But secondly – governance outside of the project. Collaboration Steering Committee. Aim is to ensure that we are being consistent in the way we rolled out Connections, drawing the line between Connections and SharePoint.
– … Surprises? They were challenges – some things took longer. Success was employee satisfaction. Needed to do SSO. US acquisitions – made this more challenging. Had to do new technology and business processes to make this work out. Unified search.
– … Mobility and approach? Mobility is very important. Mobile was initially out-of-scope. But after talking with people, mobility became more important. People started talking about access from their BlackBerries. It was an initial decision factor though.
– … Approach to the rollout? Pilot for 500 people in US and Canada. Then did Canada for up to 50,000 people. Now rolling out to the US – 25,000 people. Canadian launch experience exceeded out expectations. Wendy did a huge job of getting the organization ready for the system, exceeded initial expectations by 7x in the initial week.
– … In the future? What excites you about 2012? Communities – very interested to see how business partners use this. Next project – a personalized landing page on WebSphere Portal.

Evolution of Leadership Matters
– Bill Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company
– … Wants to talk about strategy, leadership, and innovation.
– … How do you build something great?
– … (1) we are living through the age of disruption. You can’t do big things better anymore. In an era of hyper-competition, you have to stand for something special. You have to stand for an important idea.
– … (2) The new logic of business – the smart take from the strong. Want to re-define the terms of competition. Strategic promise of social – inviting people from outside to help. Need to give people something to become passionate about.
– … (3) You can’t stay in the middle of the road – your organization needs to become “the best of something.” Story from the book – Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. How do we re-think medicine and a hospital for the 21st century?
– … put aside the technologies and products you use. Ask – how does our business work? What are the big ideas and concepts that define your business? What are you “the most of”?
– … not “what keeps you up at night?”, but rather “what gets you up in the morning?”
– … success is about passion, emotion, and value. Need to make what you do more memorable for customers.
– … social technology – what holds colleagues together. Strongly felt culture. How do we create the strong collaborative bonds beyond employees?
– … the big question: “Are you learning as fast as the world is changing?”