Polly Pearson's Blog

Day in the Life of Employment Branding

Lots of moving and shaking today in my world -- should be sleeping, in prep for my 4am wake up call for flight to family vacation tomorrow morning ... but thought a blog post might help digest the meetings and subjects which hit my plate today ... and help me wind down enough for bed.

Today's Top Ten

First meeting of the day:  Branding and messaging request for our to-be-launched major revamp of the on-boarding process for new hires -- inclusive of request for strategy and program management for elements inclusive of CEO Tucci participation, and division Presidents. 

Second meeting: Collaboration with CTO office member/MIT Fellow; Engineer/Video Documentary hobbyist; Director of Global Event Management; Marketing Thought Leadership Editor; and Distinguished Engineer on an idea to film customers at EMCWorld event discussing the milestone moment in their lives which led them into the field/career they're practicing today. Fascinating stories emerge. Deeper connections are forged on an emotional level ... more to come on that. Needed plan the location, communication, questions to be asked, and review overarching strategy, objective, and desired result.

Third meeting: Secret.

Fourth meeting: Review of planned and potential multi-media content for the 2011 FORTUNE Best Places to Work submission.  Includes videos, photos, etc. aligning to the 20 or so questions FORTUNE wants documented on topics such as how we care, listen, thank, celebrate, etc.  Discussed strategy and execution, and some surprise company celebrations in the works.

Fifth meeting: Request for branding strategy and creative input for vendor working on a new, global Rewards & Recognition system for EMC.  We covered the EMC culture, what makes us tick, how we need to participate/engage (not be talked at, or talked down to), and requirement to keep it real. Ended meeting brainstorming training strategies to ensure recognition goes deeper into the fabric of our company. Went back to office and created custom deck complete with employee photos and quotes discussing the culture as well as our brand message architecture for the vendor. Shared this deck with others who could have similar need for external audiences -- good for recruiters.  (Note to self: should upload it to SlideShare.)

Sixth meeting: Review of eBook strategy for the content's packaging and production.  This eBook features the voices and stories of our customers discussing careers in technology, mistakes made, success tips, and what they feel are the hottest areas today.  High stakes when collaborating with customers. Needs to be GOOD. Needs to be finished for EMCWorld (about 3 weeks away.) Need to absorb about 100 customer submissions and consider what content to feature and how. Need also to engage web publishing designer on format and execution.

MISSED event:  EMC's celebration of the EMC RUN as ONE marathon team -- employees and customers who will be running flew in from around the world to run in the most famous marathon on the planet this coming Monday: The Boston Marathon.  (Was sorry to miss this. The organizers scheduled a special meeting with me on it a couple weeks ago to get my ideas and support.) The marathon's starting line is in our company's home town of Hopkinton, Mass. For the rocket scientists out there -- that means we're 26 miles outside of Boston. Was delighted @Stu pulled me out of my office to meet a couple of the VIPs in town -- Michelle Flynn (star of eBook #1), and Matthew Bagwell (star of the 2.0 revolution for EMC consulting) -- both EMCers from the UK. Got to brainstorm with them on the eBook.

Seventh:  Had to create a presentation for a major, national Inclusion and Diversity conference in Atlanta on April 27th. EMC is a sponsor. I'm filling in for EVP Frank Hauck. It was due last week, and really truly due today. Finished! ... about 7pm tonight.

Eighth: Had to write a promo describing my coming keynote presentation at a New England HR Association conference happening in May. Due today. ... Today/Tonight -- close enough. Check!

Ninth: No time left to edit more FORTUNE Best Companies essays which were asked for, a few times, by today.  Eyes were stinging. Tummy hungry. Needed to get home and pack. There is always vacation for that!

Tenth:  Home. Eat. Watched teenager bake a cake, followed by three kids with spoons fighting to get into the bowl of remaining liquid, chocolate, cake batter. Pack. Blog to wind down.

------------ Talk Back -----------

In your day today, did you do what you hoped to be doing when you had that "milestone moment" as a kid?

I did.  My milestone moment happened about age 15 in my first (and oddly only) media class. I was in front of a camera and felt somehow at home -- liking the "reach" (aka "mass market the message"), liking the storytelling medium. I knew from then on the platform, or stage, I preferred was big, and far-reaching. With Good Morning America anchor on my mind, I also saw how every day could bring me fresh, and diverse content to digest, and bite-sized story telling opportunities.  (In my job, I get to do all that without DAILY 4am wake up calls!)

For anyone who thought this day was sort of cool and of interest to you, did I mention that I'm hiring?  Looking for an Employment Brand Manager to help.  I can use an operations-minded, 2.0-savvy Admin as well. Will post specs on return from vaca.

-- Polly Pearson
http://www.pollypearson.com
@PollyPearson on Twitter

See also EMCCareers on Facebook.

FORTUNE 500 Findings: Brand Quiz

So the new FORTUNE 500 ranking of the top American companies in terms of revenue recently came out.

I thought it was a fun exercise to consider which companies were where on the list.

THE QUIZ

 

 

So here is the Quiz for you brand-curious types (answers below, aligned by #) --

EMC,  #166 on the list, is bigger or smaller than the following?

1. Viacom, OmniCom, CBS, Washington Post, Cablevision, McGraw Hill -- are BIGGER or SMALLER than EMC?
2. USAir, Continental, SouthWest Airlines -- are BIGGER or SMALLER?
3. AMEX, Bank of America, GE, Goldman Sachs -- are BIGGER or SMALLER?
4. Walt Disney, PepsiCo, McDonalds, Coca Cola -- are BIGGER or SMALLER?
5. Starbucks, Hershey, Kellog, Sara Lee, Campbell Soup, Heinz -- are BIGGER or SMALLER?
6. Wal-mart, Home Depot, Target, Staples, Nike, Gap, Amazon -- are BIGGER or SMALLER?
7. e-Bay, Nordstrom, BJ's,Whole Foods, Limited Brands, Polo Ralph Lauren -- are BIGGER or SMALLER?
8. Intel, AT&T, IBM, Dell, Apple, Oracle -- are BIGGER or SMALLER?
9. Harley Davidson, Eastman Kodak, GameStop, Marriott -- are BIGGER or SMALLER?
10. Mastercard, ADP, State Street, Marsh & McLennan -- are BIGGER or SMALLER?

 

ANSWERS:

1. EMC is ... BIGGER than Viacom, OmniCom, CBS, Wash Post, Cablevision, McGraw Hill
2. BIGGER than USAir, Continental, SouthWest
3. SMALLER than AMEX, BofA, GE, Goldman
4. SMALLER than Walt Disney, Pepsi, McDonalds, Coca Cola
5. BIGGER than Starbucks, Hershey, Kellog, Sara Lee, Campbell's and Heinz
6. SMALLER than Wal-mart, Home Depot, Target, Staples, Nike, Gap, Amazon
7. BIGGER than e-Bay, Nordstrom, BJ's, Whole Foods, Limited, Polo Ralph Lauren
8. SMALLER than Intel, AT&T, IBM, Dell, Apple, Oracle
9. BIGGER than Harley, Eastman, GameStop, Marriott
10. BIGGER than Mastercard, ADP, State St, Marsh & McLennan

So there you have it, the brand world using EMC as the bountiful baseline of revenue success in America!

------------------- Talk Back ------------------

How did you do?!

Any surprises?  Any smiles?

For me, my eyebrows went up to see EMC was bigger than Mastercard and ADP, bigger than e-Bay and Marriott, Starbucks, USAir and Cablevision.

I was also surprised to see how relatively low Microsoft was on the list (36). Boy the gap between us is getting smaller every year!! Here we come Softie!!  (smile)

(PS: Thanks for allowing me a break from my Workplace 2.0 Timeline blog series.  Writing a series of posts always seems to exhaust my sensation seeking mind.)

-- Polly Pearson
http://www.pollypearson.com
@pollypearson on Twitter

Workplace 2.0: Timeline, Year TWO

The prior two posts covered Year ONE.  Now, the following is a look at Year TWO, 2007.

 

TALK TRACK:

2007

RESEARCH -- TOOLS & CULTURE:

"Look with Honesty."

From the Employment Brand side of things, I was tasked by Jack Mollen, EVP of HR, to look "with honesty" at the culture, and on the perceptions of EMC as a place to work -- our strengths and our weaknesses. We had an eye to promote our strengths of course, and to improve our weaknesses.  I surveyed our recruiters and recall that they reported perceptions of EMC, in the negative column, as being "old school; old processes; bureaucratic." The positive column had attributes such as "Results-driven, Successful, Brand leader, Financially Strong."

I met with a half dozen agencies on the HR and Marketing side of things to learn what other companies were doing to enhance their employment brands.  In my opinion, there were not a lot of best practices to leverage -- for the EMC culture, at any rate. (posters, mugs, and/or expensive and deep process changes need not apply.)

INTERNAL ENTHUSIASTS

Meanwhile, there were several pockets of people and activity taking place internally with social networks. Examples: in our CTO office with an Innovation Network; in our Content Management Group with Developer Networks; and in HR (yes, HR!) with an internal Ning platform for internal collaboration, and with career fairs in the virtual world collaboration platform, Second Life. There were also a few people who were  blogging (I started around then), or who simply "got this world" and started to gravitate toward the conversation.

Major sides of the house were coming to the same essential conclusion -- and IT was bending over backwards to figure out ways to help, while keeping the IT infrastructure secure.

Momentum toward 2.0 was building -- but in an un-unified (schizophrenic?) manner.

MARKETING, HR and IT (and more Enthusiasts) CONNECT

The bloggers and project skunk works taking place in Marketing, HR, in the Field, and in the Tech groups started becoming aware of one another's activities, and began sharing their breakthroughs and tips. More and more social media light bulbs started to turn on in workgroups, and with leaders, around the company. We began bouncing ideas off one another and collaborating on projects -- a major one being our first, (internal) Global Innovation Idea Contest & Conference, where Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics, was our keynote speaker.

A "cease-exploration and experimentation" of sorts was called by Q3 of 2007, and we were all encouraged to focus on our efforts toward a singular internal social network and build from there. We called this platform EMC|ONE.  Everyone interested was encouraged to join an email distribution list where we posed questions, voiced concerns, debated answers, and made streamlined decisions on the experiment.  We discussed subjects such as "what communities should we launch on the network?"  

[Answer:  WE don't launch any. The people participating in the network decide what community groups to launch.]  

I can not recall even ONE physical meeting during these "incubation of the internal social network idea" days.  We had participants in the string from all over the world, and from multiple areas of the company. Titles made little or no difference in the debates. We were operating with the unsaid desire to do the right thing for the business, and in the process, stretched our individual resolve with "trust," over individual opinion and/or organizational constructs.  

[Example:  I recall the debate around having people learn 2.0 norms first "inside our firewall," vs. having it be cool for anyone and everyone to participate "externally" on behalf of EMC immediately as well.  I was in the "inside and outside" immediately camp. I listened to the views of others, got over what I thought was optimal, and trusted the conviction of others to go with/encourage the "inside first" behavior model. In retrospect, I believe the "inside first" decision was the right one. While building the 2.0 skills of our workforce, I see the biggest benefit was actually the side effect of encouraging the formation of deeper, trusting relationships between the people of the company, (aka the EMC family) -- which has served the company very well once the EMCers started engaging "outside" the firewall.]

Check out the white paper Chuck Hollis wrote which covers 2007 & 2008 key decisions and approaches rather well, including points on the business case (or not), and the tech decisions. Chuck was an early leader and an evangelist on our journey.

See also the recent blog post on EMC's 2007 journey by EMC's WebMaster, Len DeVanna for the platform story. Len was an early leader as well, and had the added responsibility of actually managing the tech platform, the user experience, and building community participation.

EMC|ONE SOFT LAUNCH & PURCHASE OF SOFTWARE SEATS

Three of my favorite elements from the Marketing/Chuck and Len side of the journey were,

1. "This is about social media proficiency within workforce as the key focus area."
2. "We should figure out this space before our competitors do."
3. "Funding for this is like a rounding error to our coffee budget." 

The marketing group handled the (un-budgeted) cost question by buying software seats in small lots, expanding the purchase as the network was discovered and used ... and along the way by building and exceeding expectations. The soft launch of this tool -- word of mouth only -- was brilliant.

... to be continued

------------------- Talk Back ------------------------

Is there anything here, so far, that catches you off-guard, or of particular interest to you and your journey?

For me, a person generally affiliated with the Marketing side of the business, but was actually part of the HR organization at the time, I couldn't believe that the employees/workforce side of things was actually an area of interest from Marketing people. Marketing folks are ALWAYS focused on the customer, the products, and the competition, right?

Why did customer-centric marketing people care about employees?

They realized that if our people did not have the skills to engage externally in this 2.0 manner, we would be out-flanked by our competitors.  They saw this as a skill that could and should be learned first inside (where it is better to make a mistake) ... so that when they're ready to go "outside" we'll know how to do it -- engage with customers and prospects -- well!  Along the way, it was realized that there was an even BIGGER benefit to engaging first on the inside: 

The hearts, minds and PASSION of engaged people are bigger than any sales & marketing budget on Earth.

-- Polly Pearson
http://www.pollypearson.com
@PollyPearson on Twitter

Workplace 2.0: Timeline, Year ONE

My prior post kicking off the Timeline of one company's  2.0 journey prompted sharing of more perspective on what was happening at our company around the time we got motivated to move down this road.  See the following from Chuck Hollis:

Comments

Chuck Hollis said...

Great perspective, Polly.

If we're thinking about 2006, I'd add a bit more context to what was going on at the time.

-- we had about a dozen or so "skunkworks" social media things floating around the company, none being done particularly well.

-- as a result of rampant acquisition and globalization, it felt more like an army of fiefdoms, rather than one company; we couldn't connect ourselves internally for a variety of reasons.

-- and, as our external conversations were getting richer, we were increasingly frustrated by our inability to connect the inside and outside of our company using traditional 1.0 means.

-- frustration levels were rising exponentially across the business; we needed a new type of answer.

You're right -- the BOD meeting was in many ways the "tipping point" -- it gave us the license to look at this strategically vs. tactically.

But many of the underlying forces were well in play.

Thanks for writing this down!

-- Chuck

_______________________________________________

I'm happy Chuck shared this.  It prompted me to look for a one-page report I wrote for the EVP of HR, Jack Mollen -- dateline May, 2006.  Jack had recently tasked me with "Strategy Engagement" and his problem statement was, simply, 

"The company revenue is back on track, the strategy is getting high marks from the marketplace, but it doesn't feel "hot" in the hallways.  Why?"

Adding to the backdrop, our employee motivation and satisfaction scores were not improving in tandem with the business results, and scores were not good in areas relating to employee connection with the company strategy.

The report I wrote for Jack was a one-page situation analysis.  It contained the findings of a research project I did to better understand the state of disconnect we were looking at.  I figured we couldn't start to solve it, until we knew, in the most honest and genuine fashion, what was on the minds of our leaders.   So I set up one-on-ones with about 25 VPs who I believed would share their most candid thoughts.  The results were potent.

Following is the core of the report:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 10, 2006

Challenge: 

 

EMC complexity, many moving parts, and pace of the business is resulting in a sub-optimal level of information sharing and engagement with and between our VPs, and follow on information flow to their organizations. Select VP quote:

 

 “We have VPs here with millions and millions in budget who have no idea as to the ramifications of their actions on other organizations.”

 

On a score of 1-5 with 5 being superior, VP’s score their ability to be fully leveraged and engaged in the business based on the information they have at a 2-3.

 

VPs are requesting:

-          At least 2 face to face meetings per year

-          Webcasts/Webseminars, perhaps quarterly, on topics of significance.

-          Regular communication that identifies top business developments and puts it in context from an executive viewpoint.

-          Visibility and clarity as to the near-term and long-term strategies and goals of EMC and its major organizations/lines of business.

-          Arranged social interaction time with their peers.

 

As for content of the face to face meetings, one SVP outlined the following:

 

“Strategy development and deployment. -- Easy to develop it; hard to execute on it.”

o       Review challenges facing the business

o       Cover how do we collectively meet the requirements that we’ve signed ourselves up for? For example, if software missed its number, how can my organization’s business perhaps help it?

o       Where can we get synergies across the business?

o       How do we make it look like one EMC?

o       Where are the operational efficiencies?”

--------------------------------------------

Looking at the report I can't help but make a mental bookmark on our still very hierarchical thinking in terms of information sharing; and be VERY PROUD of how far we've come.

-------------------- TALK BACK --------------------

EMCers, do you remember this time?  We had put forth a singular EMC strategy to our customers, "Information Lifecycle Management," yet we were still acting like several distinct companies inside and outside of our company walls.  

It was very hard on all of us.  We are an engaged culture of passionate, innovative people who focus on successful results.  I think there was a funky mood in the hallways because we all knew we weren't operating as cohesively as we could. But how to solve it?

We're far from perfect today of course, but gosh are things so, so, so, so much better! We ended the year 2009, of course, with a quarter showing RECORD revenue and customer satisfaction, as well as RECORD employee engagement.

-- Polly Pearson
- http://www.pollypearson.com
@PollyPearson on Twitter