Kaiser Permanente uses internal social media channels to increase collaboration across its large, dispersed organization. It launched an internal social network called KP Ideabook to help employees find expertise, connect with colleagues, organize content, and collaborate instantly. The network uses tagging profiles and groups to improve findability. It has added benefits like blogs, document sharing and polls. The internal network aims to reduce barriers like travel limits and siloed departments by facilitating connections and knowledge sharing across Kaiser Permanente's 9 states and 160,000 employees.

1. How Big Companies Use Social Media
San Francisco | June 23, 2009
Hilary Weber
Kaiser Permanente
“Harvesting the Low-Hanging Fruit of
Internal Social Media Channels”

2. Harvesting the Low-Hanging Fruit of
June 2009
Internal Social Media Channels

3. 2
Why and How Are Companies Using Internal
Networks?
Nissan: NSquare
 Increase effectiveness of communication and collaboration
 Avoid bureaucracy
 Create new partnerships and cross-functional alliances
Best Buy: Blue Shirt Nation
 Reduce turnover
 Increase employee engagement & satisfaction
General Electric: SupportCentral
 “The Gold Standard”: Connect 400,000 users in 6000 global
locations, using 20 languages (25 million visits per DAY) http://
www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/all/ge-nails-the-internal-
social-network/?cs=11657

4. 3
Overview: Kaiser Permanente
• Largest integrated health care provider in U.S., with
largest active electronic medical record system on
the planet (out of 8.6 million members, over 3
million have active access)
• 160,000 employees plus 14,000 physicians across
• 9 states spanning both coasts and Hawaii
• 35 hospitals and 431 medical office buildings

5. 4
Opportunity: Make Connections and Increase
Collaboration
 Departments and regions work independently
 Subject-matter experts are geographically
dispersed
 Travel is becoming more limited
 Technology and innovation is “in our DNA”
 Motivated to gain work efficiencies via better
connections
 Hope to leverage Web 2.0 internally to help inform
what we do externally

6. 5
Social Networking and Collaboration Tools
@ Kaiser Permanente
• Used heavily externally to support
primarily PR efforts (youtube, Twitter,
Facebook, etc)
• Internally, social media and collaboration
tools are a key component of our broader
employee portal strategy

7. 6
Social Networking and Collaboration Tools
@ Kaiser Permanente
Branded to integrate within Employee Portal
User friendly & simple tools (Jive software)
 Blog
 Discussions
 Polls
 Wikis
 Polling
 Profile

8. 7
Social Networking and Collaboration Tools
@ Kaiser Permanente
 Create communities for: short or long-term
projects, newsletters, shared interest, or community
of practice
 Colleagues can work collaboratively across
departments, regions, and time zones.
 Connect with those of similar interests or look for an
inspiration or a helping hand by searching for
colleagues by expertise, biography, past/current
KP projects, and personal interests.

9. Social Networking and Collaboration Tools 8
@ Kaiser Permanente

10. 9
Challenges
• Web 2.0 is a second language for us.
• How do you transfer the organic nature of
social media to a regulated corporate
structure?
• These tools makes Legal and Compliance
departments very nervous!

11. 10
A Case Example

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Where We Started: Grassroots Networking
Like everyone
else, we cut our
teeth on email;
then individual
blogs started
proliferating in a
viral, organic
fashion.

13. 12
Opportunity from Digital Marketing’s POV
As Director of Internet Marketing Services (part
of Brand Marketing), my team functions as a
consultative internal digital marketing agency
and “R&D” shop (producing 800-1000
projects/ campaigns per year)
I often hear: “We don’t know what you’re
working on” – even within my own team – so I
was motivated to find a way to share our
plans, programs and projects more effectively

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Opportunity from Digital Marketing’s POV
To share our programs and projects more
effectively:
 I used to write marketing plans (no one ever
read them)
 Email became an unwieldy, abused channel
for communication (plus it’s hard to sort by
importance, relevance or content)
 I decided to get “my own house in order
first” for my own team’s connectivity and
sharing, so we set up a WIKI
 I think of the Wiki as the equivalent of the
“Family Tool Shed” (where we keep our
Stuff)

15. 14
Wikis for Teams

16. 15
Case Study: Need a New Tool on the Intranet…
But my team has no developers, page designers or
techies…
• We built a quick
“mock-up” in our Wiki
• Content is real
• Has links leading the
user 6-7 pages deep
• Result? The Intranet
team has direct
access, and knows
exactly what we want
without requirements
meetings, wireframes,
etc.
• Win-Win

17. 16
The Wiki Can Shape & Centralize the Team’s
Processes

18. 17
Each Subteam Can Have Its Own “Micro-site”

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Opportunity for Increased “Visibility” with Others
The Wiki is a great resource for a team, but not
so good for sharing & collaborating outside of
the team…
My team is a part of the National Marketing &
Internet Services department, with over 500
employees
Then add many additional colleagues, e.g. Web
Development partners in IT, internal “clients”
in numerous departments and regions, etc. –
this takes our “internal target market” into the
1000s, so…
 How can we find subject matter experts – the right
contacts?
 How can we connect and stay connected to our

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Goal: Innovative Collaboration Across the
Organization
Find
Connect
Organize
Collaborate

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Introducing KP Ideabook: The “Town Square”

22. 21
FIND People, Groups and Information
“Tags” on Profiles Allow Us to Find Who/What We’re Looking For

23. 22
CONNECT with Key Contacts and Groups
Step One:
Click to Connect
Step Two:
Connection Made

24. 23
ORGANIZE the Content You Need to Access

25. 24
COLLABORATE with Others Instantly

26. 25
Added Benefits of Internal Networking
Interactive E-Work Environment:
• Custom Group Set-up (either Open or Private discussions
and invitations)
• Blogs for individuals and groups
• Document Sharing
• Polls – ask groups you belong to or everyone in the
network
Consolidation of your work, teams, partners,
new ideas and resources in one place

27. 26
My Team Can Share Updates Anytime

28. 27
Promoting the Channel
Sample Instructions:
Ideabook.kp.org is live now and ready to try out…
Step 1: Go to ideabook.kp.org and register (it’s easy!)
Step 2: Enter your “bio” information and your photo so people will recognize you
in a meeting or in the hall (no dog or kid photos, please!)
Step 3: Do a search using tags (keywords, e.g. email marketing or Web 2.0) to find
the people/teams/skill sets you seek
Step 4: Start “friending” people to collaborate with them
You can set up a Group with people you would normally share
meetings, information, decisions with – you can start to see time
savings and meeting reduction right away

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Tactical Takeaways
Searchable TAGS (keywords) connected
to people’s Profiles – this is the
“Crown Jewel” of Findability
Recommendations:
• Come up with 20-25 tags for your team/group, publish them and
use them consistently
• Train others (e.g. your team) to use the tags on their own profile
and in their posts
• General searching on the networking tool takes zero training –
we all learned it on Google (and Friending we learned on
Facebook)

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Final Thoughts
Consider a wiki for your team as a “Tool
Shed”
For broader sharing/collaborating, make
the most of your “Town Square”
network:
• Tags, Tags, Tags!
• Lead by example (robust profile, etc.)
• Play with the available features – learn what works for you
• Go where you could not go before! New discoveries await…

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Wrap-up
Thank you!
Contact info:
Hilary Weber
• hilary.weber@kp.org

32. How Big Companies Use Social Media
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