Organization Name: EMC2
Industry: Software Development and IT Solutions
Web References: emc.com jivesoftware.com, github.com, facebook.com twitter.com, Forbes Magazine
EMC was founded in 1979 by Richard Egan and Roger Marino in Massachusetts. They developed the 64 KB chip memory board for Print Computer Inc. In 1985, they were the first to ship memory upgrades with 1 megabite of RAM – exciting at the time but seems almost laughable now! One year later, their chip doubled the capacity of Hewlett Packard 3000 Computers, and in 1989 EMC developed storage subsystems for IBM computers. By 1998 EMC was the world’s fastest growing software company with revenues reaching $4 billion.
EMC is now a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver information technology as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. On its website it states:
“Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way.”
With employees numbered close to 50,000, it seems a stretch that EMC would need to seek product development outside of its corporate offices. Oh, but they do.
EMC helps develop its IT products and software development is through social media communities.
These communities are hosted on Jive – no, not a music style…
…Jive is a platform that offers companies social intranet solutions featuring a mobile workstyle product experience. Tomio Geron, a writer for Forbes Magazine, said on writing about Jive:
“Jive makes workplace collaboration as easy Facebook makes sharing baby photos.”
Jive empowers EMC to create employee and customer communities, where information is shared, which in turn directly affects product development. EMC department managers get web-hook based notifications when activity occurs within a Jive community.
Jonathan Martin, Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing for EMC says they are able to drive engagement, unlock latent business value and improve overall operations. Martin gives a strong video endorsement for the customer and product developer communities which Jive offers:
“We are finding new ways to leverage community to go and repurpose and redesign business processes that have been around for decades.”
Todd Forsythe, also a Senior VP at EMC, says the company’s external community network has become a mission critical tool for its go-to market strategy. Watch the testimonial video here.
EMC engages in numerous communities for discussion, as you can see by the category image. They even have communities for people whose native tongue is not English!
EMC also directly looks for software developers through Github. Github is a code sharing and publishing service that manages and stores revisions of projects – think of it as a filing system for every draft of every project. EMC uses Github to source out software developers and their ideas. This peer-to-peer conversation that occurs on these platforms is critical for engaging customers and developers. EMC’s Github developer page states:
“We are looking for innovative approaches to solving problems!”
EMS is also heavily engaged in other social media platforms: The company has numerous Facebook pages to help with product development and support: EMC World, EMC Academics, the EMC Corporate Facebook Page as well as its newest EMC Partner Support Center page which is a contact for pre and post sales support to EMC and its partners.
The company’s corporate Twitter account has over 7,000 followers which posts as well as receives and re-tweets programming tips. The EMC Code Twitter account @EMCcode is active with developers sharing coding ideas.
EMC also just recently hosted their 8th annual Proven Professional Awards. Professionals complete a certification program and students’ work often become the basis of product development for the corporation.
Lessons:
- Social media and social product innovation is now an integral and powerful tool available to all, and businesses must get on board, or get left behind.
- The world is your library for product discussion, innovation and solving problems. It does not stop at the company lab or board room door.
- Share your knowledge with other professionals
Submitted by: Elizabeth L. Cooper, SMBP student. University of Waterloo
To contact the author of this entry please email at: bettycoop99@gmail.com
If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this sit, please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Programme Director, Social Media for Business Performance.