Inside Out: Debut of An Employee Ambassador

When I was editor-in-chief of the now defunct SAP employee magazine, SAP World, my boss and I disagreed on one point: Displaying the magazine in the foyer of our headquarters. He felt the content was too internal; I considered displaying copies of the magazine a great example of our openness and employer branding. Besides, the legal department had already sanitized each edition.

Like print media, the distinction between internal and external communications has felt the pinch from the social enterprise. This is something Scott Schenker, Vice President, Global Events, SAP, instinctively picked up on with a brilliant idea. His team had appointed social ambassadors for product topics to SAPPHIRE NOW Madrid including my good friend and colleague Tim Clark. But Scott felt that something was missing, and that was the role of the social ambassador to and for the SAP employees.

As the employee ambassador, it will be my job to share the live experience of SAPPHIRE NOW with all the colleagues who cannot attend. I will be blogging, for example, about the Global Communications program, which creates an experience around the event for dozens of journalists, bloggers, industry and financial analysts. I will be digging deep into my network to find people who staff demo pods or host customers as account executives. Scott describes the role as “the eyes and ears for employees during the event” but cautions that this is not light fare about the number of coffees we serve or the miles of cable we lay. Instead, I will be focusing on the attendee experience at the world’s most innovative business conference, not on the tactics we employ.

I was chuffed to be offered the role. I’ve got a bit of experience in the internal communications area (see my profile) and love the idea of sharing my thoughts on what is happening at the company with everyone on SCN. But help me out here – I want to learn who the best social enterprises are in this respect.

Besides, who knows – maybe we can display the content on a live feed in the foyer at headquarters?

I look forward to hearing from you all.