The document summarizes insights from a survey of over 10,000 members of an online community network. Key findings include: 1) Most members found the community highly valuable and would recommend it to colleagues, especially for technical support, software access, and education. 2) Satisfaction with the less than 2-year old community matched that of more mature and larger vendor sites. 3) Members wanted the community to be easier to navigate and search, and to better unite related online resources. 4) Increasing awareness of the community was seen as a way to boost participation and value for both employees and external members.

1. VOC
5 Lessons from 10,000 Members
Assessing Community Network Sentiment and Perception

2. Content
 Objectives
 Methodology
 Key Findings
 Survey Questions
 Response Summary

3. Objectives
 Establish a baseline measurement of member
sentiment towards ECN communities
 Identify the aspects and features of ECN that
members find most and least valuable
 Elicit member ideas around content or features
that can drive higher engagement
 Understand which alternative/similar on-line sites
members use; how ECN ranks against those
alternatives

4. Methodology
 15 question on-line survey
 Emailed to 141,000+ registered ECN
members (internal and external to EMC)
 Survey link on multiple ECN pages
 Respondents able to participate in
product give-away
 Fielded week of July 23, 2010. Conclude
August 31, 2010.

5. Response Summary
64% of the members are less than 40.
Total Responses 15867
Email 15493
Open Survey 374
Completed Survey 9409
60% have been a member for 1 year or longer.
Membership Length % Responses
Not a member 12%
45% of the members come from North America
Less than a year 28%
1-3 years 37%
Over 3 years 23%
Title % Responses
Technical Administrator 24%
Technical Developer 11%
Technical Management 31%
Operations 8%
Project Management 7%
Non – Technical Management 2%
Others 17%

6. Key Findings
 ECN is viewed as highly valued and trusted resource. Members are ECN advocates.
 Over 85% of members rated ECN valuable and would recommend to a colleague. Highest rated features
were technical support, software access and education. Notable is member trust; over 70% of respondents
indicated that ECN doesn’t spam and provides useful answers to questions; + 60% believe ECN protects
member privacy.
 Still in early/formative stage ECN experience improves brand perceptions. User satisfaction matches
that of significantly larger and more mature vendors sites.
 About half of respondents reported community had a high positive impact on their perception of EMC.
Interestingly member satisfaction with ECN was generally equivalent to Microsoft, HP and Oracle.
 Members ask ECN to tame complexity; make ECN easier to use.
 Greatest opportunity to build value is making it easier for members to get relevant information to members
faster; reduce confusion about where to go for what. Members note the desire to unite communities with
other EMC on-line resources. Also notable is the desire for search capability that is more accurate and more
intuitive organization of information.
 Limited awareness limits effectiveness
 About 20% of registered members were unaware of membership; had limited knowledge and experience
with ECN beyond Support Forums. Members recommended increasing awareness to increase participation
and value. Community presence for storage, back-up and recovery is missing.
 Technical empowerment of members is the marketing strategy
 Members want more technical information from EMC; software downloads, product information and access
to SME to solve problems. This is a key differentiator of ECN from other social media platforms.

7. Implications and actions needed
 Cultivate member trust and advocacy by maintaining a focus on technical access and empowerment.
 Focus on providing more technical information, education and access to evaluation software
 Mine the positive business impact of community engagement by increasing awareness internally and
externally
 Invest in prominent linkages to share content with ‘social’ platforms
 Make ECN easier to navigate and easier to search
 Continue to improve SEARCH capability
 Investigate improved navigation and organization to reflect ‘product-centric’ interest
 Members want more participation by EMC
 SME: Technical expertise, product management, documentation and support
 Strategic products need better representation
 Further investigate and size interest in ECN partner communities
 Need to assess member requests for ‘language’ or ‘region’

8. Community experience delivers value and
advocacy to +85% of members.
Considering all of your visits to % All
EMC communities how would you Members "I would rate as 5. It is
rate the value to you? (N=xxxx) useful in understanding
High Value (8-10) 48% technologies clearly, since
All Value (6-10) 86%
all the Professionals are
sharing their views
Neutral 11% precisely.”
Low Value (1-4) 4%
"I am not an storage expert,
We feel the real test of value is whether you % so every time I have some
would recommend EMC communities to a Members doubts or questions, I try to
colleague. Would you? (N=xxxx)
find out the answer on the
High Likelihood (8-10) 56%
communities. I often find
All Likely (6-10) 86% the answer there."
Neutral 11%
Low Likelihood (1-4) 3%

9. +70% trust ECN as a ‘spam free’
environment. Responses are helpful.
These are our community objectives. How Strong Strong “Labs have helped me get
strongly do you agree or disagree that these are Agreeme Disagreem
true for you? (N=xxxx) nt % ent % involved in a product's
(4-5) (1-2) development direction.
Never spammed 71 5 Support forums have
assisted with resolving
Responses to questions are helpful 70 6
technical issues.”
My privacy is protected 64 3
"EMC communities has
grown to give a better
These are features and resources Strong support to me during the
available in our communities. What do Agreement
you think? Rate the value. (N=xxxx) % upgrade of D6.5 SP2. They
(4-5) had provided necessary
Download EMC software 78 information such as server
configuration and
Search for product or solution 77
requirement, application
information
requirement for us to
Support to fix a product or service 71
problem
upgrade to D6.5 SP2 with
no hassle and fuss" .

10. About half of the respondents feel EMC Community members have
that ECN has had a ‘high positive guided me the path to become a
impact’ on their view of EMC. EMC storage administrator … Not
just a sales tool.
Community impact on how I view doing % Members
business with EMC ( N=xxxx)
High positive impact (4-5) 49%
“It has a significant positive impact
Neutral 36% when I query technical solutions to
No / low positive impact (1-2) 16% specific problems and people
• Only 16%
collaborate with their ideas.You
indicate no or a
low impact. are doing a great job!”
Just knowing they are there when I
need them is a comfort.
Its gives us the advantage to share
experiences of professionals from
different geographies - a great
learning platform.
"Intelligent, engaging
members. Fast servers.
good conversation"

11. Satisfaction with ECN, less than 24
months old, is on par with mature
industry leaders.
“The most important
thing I can ask for is to
• When asked to continue dedicating
evaluate satisfaction resources to
with other visited
sites, ECN was maintaining and
rated the same or growing this
higher for all vendors commitment to
except Hitachi.
customers like me.You
don't HAVE to fix
anything right now. Just
don't break it by letting
it slide!”

12. Members want simplicity and clarity.
• Only 45% of “There is still confusion on
These are our community objectives. Strong Strong
respondents feel that How strongly do you agree or disagree Agree Disagre where to post questions:
ECN makes it easy to that these are true for you? (N=xxxx) ment
%
ement
%
Support Forums, Developer
find what they want. (4-5) (1-2) Network, or Community
Easy to find what I want 45% 23% Connect. I believe a single
•Analysis of verbatim
site would be more
show that ‘hard to’ is
linked to ‘find’, beneficial for the
‘navigate’, and ‘get’. community as a whole.”
"Improve on the forums or
make a publicly available
forum, which Google can
index. so it's very
searchable.“
“Make it easier to find what
you're looking for.”

13. Improving Search is a leading member ask.
The black point for me is
the search on the EMC
support site. Gold mine of
information, but it is not
• Analysis of verbatim
easy to find what I'm
show that “Improve
Search” is one of the
looking for. Global search
top 15 phrases Most other companies' give me lots of answer I
members have used. support forums are right don't want (on other
out there, searchable on products) and more specific
Google. However, EMC's search when indicating the
are not - it's part of our product on which I want to
maintenance and support make a search often forget
fees. However, I find some valuable answer.
Google's search engine
much more reliable than
PowerLink's search engine.
I would appreciate either a
more reliable search engine,
or having Google be able to
crawl EMC's content.

14. Limited Awareness Limits Effectiveness
Which EMC communities and spaces % “Think EMC should market
• Almost 1 in 5 have you visited in the last 6 Members communities better. Until doing
‘members’ think they months? (N=6743) this survey I was unaware of a
haven’t visited ECN. Support Forums 59% lot of the communities listed
Connect 26% here.”
• Over 10% don’t
believe they are an None of these 21% “You need all of us who are
member. Partner 19% EMC users to participate. My
EDN (EMC's Developer Network) 15% advice: get the account team
•Both employees and and the CEs in on it. If they can
Labs (Early access projects) 7%
external members hand hold people, and get them
want more Solution Gallery 3% started on it, the one-time user
awareness to drive may just become the full-time
participation and How long have you been a % user. That should be your goal,
value. member? (N~6700) Members IMO.”
1-3 years 37%
"I think a successful community
Over 3 years 23%
should become a part of my life,
1 – 6 months 16% at least a part of my job.
7 – 11 months 15%
Not a member 12% Make these things more
popular among EMC
Less than 1 month 2%
employees, it will be
automatically more effective
then."

15. Technical empowerment of members is the
marketing strategy
Need a Spanish
Have a Get Your
Ability to chat with the community, easier
Questions Answered
EMC engineers or to find things and
by Professionals
product team would be make questions to
page and direct the
helpful like “ibnlive” where other people.
Q's to experts in the
community- would be the chat is open and
great. scheduled in advance.
But I would say this still
requires lot of refinement.
The EMC community
Use video to does not help in creating
Need more support
make the location specific group or
documentation
knowledge community. Employees
available on
more efficient.
products. Too many from all geographies
Love chalk
issues need support share one community. We
talks.
cases opened when need options to create
they could be resolved local groups which may
from a doc on the share one common
website.
community. Interested
people can participate in
Need an area customers
can do sample zoning different groups."
and SMC "As I
configurations. A place menioned in earlier
we can log in. An comment. Community
practice our skills. To forum must be more
learn more about SMC flexible enough to create
and SRDF. groups which are more
focused and has specific
objective.

16. Ability to chat with the
Beyond Search: VOC Top 11 Asks EMC engineers or http://features.ibnlive.in.
com/chat/view/353.html
product team would be
helpful like “ibnlive” where
One drawback is the chat is open and
Need to more focus inability to filter all scheduled in advance.
on the threads which results. If a filter could Need more support
are unanswered and be configurable for documentation
someone from EMC that landing page it available on
should guide the would simplify products. Too many
community members browsing the support issues need support
with the correct forums. Use video to cases opened when
resolution. make the they could be resolved
knowledge from a doc on the
Moderators still not more efficient. website.
awarding points in Love chalk
the threads where talks.
Consolidate instead of original posters have
having support not acknowledged the Make site
questions go to the response. Last month customizable like
developer, lab, and encountered at least 3 ServiceNnow
support sections. times when I know my [https://demo.service-
Aggregate the response was right now.com/] its easy for
communities so the but, original poster people to select which
critical mass of eyes is never came back to button and functions fit
on single point acknowledge and their needs...
award points. This has
to be fixed to get more
involvement from
Have a Get Your
community members.
Questions Answered Globalement vos sites
by Professionals Multi-lingual:
répondent à mes
page and direct the Most important, besoins même si
Q's to experts in the ensure validity of Need a Spanish parfois on a du mal à
community- would be information. Having community, easier s'y retrouver. Votre
great. an authority rubber to find things and support localisé en
stamp the final version make questions to Inde ne facilite pas
of what is shared will other people. toujours les choses.
increase its credibility.

17. Keep
listening