When I was at Omniture, we were better than big tech companies when it came to understanding social and the cutting-edge technology trends – definitely better than every Utah tech company, but not as savvy as the VC-backed startups in Silicon Valley. At Domo, we’ve made an effort to attract the right folks and certainly have pockets of bleeding-edge technologists and highly social Domosapiens. I want to ensure we are every bit as adept at understanding and leveraging social and new technology trends across the entire company as any other smoking-hot startup.
That’s why I’m really excited about about what’s going down at Domo today. I called a company meeting that is starting in less than an hour. It was scheduled as a regular company update – but that premise was mere subterfuge, we’re totally sleuthing it and using the meeting to launch a new eight-week program called the #domosocial experiment. So far, this program is unbeknownst to everyone except the five people working on the launch. For Domo employees following me on Twitter or following this blog, consider this your advance notice and a VIP invitation.
At Domo, we are at the forefront of changing the way people run their businesses through the consumerization of the enterprise. It is therefore incumbent upon us to know new technologies as intimately as possible. Accordingly, the #domosocial experiment is a new program we’ve created to drive 100% employee adoption of social media throughout the enterprise. The program is designed to get everyone here engaged with and learning from consumer and social technologies. We believe this will help us develop a better product, understand the viral nature of web offerings more effectively, assist in getting the Domo brand out there and enable better customer conversations.
I’ve always loved experimenting with new technology. Through the process, I’ve discovered new ideas for products and learned what makes for a great user experience…To the point of user experience, a couple of my favorite apps include Flipboard and Pinterest. They both nail simplicity, are highly functional, and, like many social apps, can challenge the way we think about enterprise technology. I signed up for Twitter years ago, but haven’t really been active until recently. I’ve learned a boat load in the short time I’ve been blogging and leveraging social to drive the business. I can’t wait to see our transformation as we get the entire company on board. Of course, I‘m hoping this effort fosters more transparency and collaboration amongst colleagues – but it’s primarily designed to open minds and get people trying new things, while creating a positive impact on Domo.
Since this is social, we’re going real-time, baby. We’re taking this experience to a whole new level by showing the entire world what we are doing. This is the first live case study of its kind. It will probably lead to some embarrassing moments, but we are hoping it will be that much more instructive if we share everything… warts and all. To that end, we expect we’ll have some dissenters…and haters…and we’ll share some of that feedback too. We’ll be tracking and sharing key metrics that show how we are doing – how we’re increasing our reach, what social apps are the most popular within our company, who are the most prolific users of social, and so on. Hopefully we will see a dramatic increase in tweets, followers and product savviness.
I’m kind of excited about this because I think we are doing something that has never happened in business before…anywhere!! It’s only possible because of the combination of technology and company size and attention and interest people hopefully have in our business. With respect to the processes and rigor of the Harvard Business Review, I’ve seen case studies before and I’ve seen transparency, but I don’t think this combination of transparency and real-time feedback and openness has ever been attempted. I mean this is Eddie Murphy RAW. The fact it’s of interest to most companies right now makes it that much more exciting! I hope our openness and honesty inspires many other companies to attempt a similar initiative.
Follow us on www.domo.com/social. There you’ll see our live case study – updates of what’s happening, experiences of employees, and some of the tools and materials we’ve used to get this project underway. You’ll also see the experiment’s impact and progress via a #domosocial infographic that will go live on the site once we’ve collected our initial metrics.
I don’t want to give away anymore before our company meeting. But I will end by saying we are taking this seriously. If we reach our goal, then we are going to take an extra holiday this year and reward the team in other ways as well. For new employees, social savvy will be a pre-requisite. For current employees, it will be a condition of employment. We are instituting a social IQ test into our hiring process. We mean business.
So please consider this the official tip-off of the #domosocial experiment. Tune in frequently. We hope you follow along!
