Breaking New Social Media Ground Behind the Firewall
[Best Buy exec Michele Azar chats with Robert Scoble at WorkFast. Photo by Shel]
Robert and I hosted our 4th episode of WorkFast Friday as we live hosted Best Buy's Michele Azar, VP Emerging Customer Channels & Gary Koelling, founder of BlueShirt Nation (BSN). Steve Bendt, the other BSN founder looked on and would have joined except for the silly reason that our table was too small. I had dinner the night before with the three of them and by the time for our live broadcast it felt like we were old friends. After the live broadcast and live chat, Robert joined us for a two-hour sushi lunch.
I am very impressed with what Best Buy has done in the space of little more than a year in a category that has generally ignored using social media in either credible or constructive ways. Most of Best Buy's efforts have been behind the firewall. BlueShirt Nation is a social network for floor help, the people who breathe the same air as customers. In slightly over a year, this project, started somewhat ad hoc by Gary and Steve has 22,000 members of the 150,000-person organization. Michele, who is pretty high up in the corporate structure says the strategy is to empower employees and fight bureaucracy across the 1300 store network.
BSN nations has chalked up quite a few victories. It lets rank-and-file employees help each other and it lets senior management understand the perceptions of the people who actually talk to customers all day long. It has been used to educate employees about 401K benefits to double enrollment and increase employee retention. It has been used to organize political action to block some proposed boneheaded legislation. It has been used to help employees during disruption of natural disaster.
[BlueShirt Nation co-founders Steve Bendt (l) and Gary Koelling. Photo by Shel]
There are other social media programs behind-the-firewall including a Geek Squad social network that started with an online-based game. We'll cover that somewhere down the line.
Michele says the the company is using employee empowerment as a business strategy, on that can improve the bottom line of a company that sold $40 b last year, bring nearly a quarter of it to the bottom line. She says that longterm, the company is likely to use social media for direct engagement with customers.
Personally, I think Best Buy has one of the great untold stories in social media and think that Michel and Gary are two outstanding company representatives who will probably be seen in the coming year on the social media conference circuit. I recommend them both as speakers and/or panelist.
If you missed the live show, it will be posted tomorrow morning at FastCompany.TV. Because of the July 4 holiday, we will be broadcasting live at 10 am, Thursday, July 3. Our guest will be Tim Ferriss, author of the best-selling "The 4-Hour Workweek." He'll be with us for an hour, presumably leaving him only three to do other business next week, I would guess.
