We’re well on our way to migrating the SCN platform, as shared by Mark Yolton in his blog Jive 5 and SCN: The Right Content to the Right Person at the Right Time. Our team has been immersed in all that is jive throughout the past year in preparation for the new SCN. That is why it was a wonderful opportunity when last week I, along with some of my colleagues, attended Jive World 2011 for outstanding learnings and networking in Las Vegas! There were more than 1,000 attendees from varied customers and partners of Jive Software. Eight separate tracks including more than sixty sessions and events were offered. I attended multiple tracks as well as a roundtable session and sitting in on one of the Jive Hero Theater session (customer community sessions). The event was chock full of great content and companies sharing their experience with lessons learned, tips and tricks etc.
Each day started off with informative keynotes and great entertainment. From break dancing with Lil Buck to the astounding flute beat box of 15 year old Annie Wu. Two special talks to note were Maria Pinchevsky, SVP of Customer Service and Sales for T-Mobile and Gabe Zichermann, Gamification Expert.
Maria Pinchevsky shared that 20,000 T-Mobile service agents handle more than 540,000 calls a day using Jive! Jive also supports their 50,000 field sales representatives. T-Mobile is using jive both internally and externally and helped them go from 29 days to less than 24 hours to write and publish documents!
Gabe Zichermann’s talk on gamification was fascinating. He cited the need to transform a big negative into small positive reinforcements to change behavior in the desired direction. As a psychology major this certainly spoke to me. To showcase this, he cited an example, the Speed Camera Lottery, used to improve driving within Swedish speed limits. Drivers caught speeding were fined (usual negative discouragement) and the money placed in a lottery. At the same time, all the drivers driving within the speed limit were entered into the lottery (to encourage and reinforce behavior). At the end of the pilot the lottery money was awarded to a random winner. Speeding was cut dramatically. Positive encouragement is always better than negative!
Other talk highlights included the need for “social” to be where the people are - Facebook, LinkedIn, Outlook, Tablets, Mobile, etc. and that Jive is making advancements in community admin reporting, social search, stream building and more.
While I felt the preconference day was geared more toward potential customers than those of us who are already Jive believers, it did kick off a wonderful opportunity for networking. Meeting others who have used Jive for years or those who recently migrated and hearing their joys, concerns, challenges and benefits was the highlight of the event for me. They also helped me to realize that the migration may not be perfect from the get-go, but that with the communication of our strong community, we will get to where we want to be.
There were multiple networking opportunities throughout the conference: breaks, lunches and a specific networking dinner where all attendees were divided into one of the Cosmopolitan Hotel’s 7 restaurants. They even provided each attendee 50 Meet Meme trading cards to exchange throughout the conference (including QR codes).
Another big plus taken away from the event is the confirmation that our very own SCN team are on the right path. Directions we chose are those that other companies who went other routes came back and said – no this way is better. That was a great feeling. I’m very much looking forward to our go live and knowing that our community will gain so much in our move forward!
The conference ended on a high note with an unbelievable show by Sarah Jones, Tony award winner and TED speaker performing hilarious characters and then a final networking opportunity at the Cosmopolitan’s pool.
I’m so glad that I had a chance to attend the event; it was well worth the investment from both a learning and networking perspective.
