LAPING: Yammer has a book, 43 ways to use Yammmer. "I thought really Seriously? 45 ways?" He was skeptical. Now he could write the book with a lot more ways. Lots of unstructured content about menu items with videos. usrse have expored many use cases that go beyond things they would ahve even thought about. "I would have guese dtha resturant copany couldn't make that 43 wyas to use Yammer happen."
LAPING: Selection process for Yammer. They looked at tother platforms. Looked at many. Amaing if you build a continuum of options there werre those taht wer still in ath Project collaboration portal look and feel, adn therew was the silly simple stuff, like Chatter or Yammer. We were trying ot be as unstructured as possible -- he was user #6 -- I got really interted in really fast. Bought admin account, and they set things up with a VP colleage in a half-day. They said no memos, no policies, let's just see what happens. Weeks later, The VP was in there -- his face gets pale -- they were doing $5/user/month and users started joining fast.
2,500 total users, about 50% are actively engaged. There is a study by Deloitte taht talks about active engagement. People that actively engage in social networks are 10x more likely to stay. Retention rate is much higher. The closest they are to guets in resturants are more engaged on Yammer. Assistant maangers more engaged than regional amangers and so forth.
CEO isn't comforgbale on Yammer. He's Boomer, doesn't communicate that way. Laping, on the other hand, will record a video while driving to work and upload it to Yammer.
CARR: And people get benefit from the positive. LAPING: Yes, "When I think back on my career the bst things I learned was form the managers I despised the most."
LAPING: one team member came on and made a lot of noise. People said that's what would happen. But the inappropraite conversation was happening at the water cooler before. CARR: NOw he has a bigger microphone. LAPING: Very quickly the community self-polices. When he saw the comments he thought somethign shoudl be done, but the community shut it down faster than he did.
LAPING: It's cultural. He wwent ot YamJam Yammer user conference. People wantd to know how to get people engaged on Yammer. HE said that doesn't come from Yammer, it's got to be there That builds success. Four core values: Honor, integrity, continuously seeking knowledge, and having fun. Now I can ask why did you pos tthat video on Yammer, that wouldn't be the honorable thing to do. BUt it's self-policing.
LAPING: Yammer is internally branded as Yummer. Yummerversity is a socail training platform for team members to engage with each other, and they can use iPads to video each other doing things taht they think shoudl be the new best practices. Like maybe a new effective way of cleaning ice machines. "They would then videotape each other."
LAPING: "Yummerversity" (sp.?) training platfomr rolling out in January. All iPad, to deplooy a thousand ipads across restaurant. "The training manual we will burn in parking lots in bonfires . Welll, hopefully we won't burn them. WE'll put them asaide." Giving millennial workfoce tools they use: Simulations, games, etc. on the iPad. Underpinnings is Oracle.
BUt now home laps business for tech. Better INternet connectivity and devices. He thought: how does he use that to get people working together in a single-purppose wourld using the tools they're used to.
LAPING: The reason mobile works is that it takes the multifounction device at work and distills it to a single purpose like home appliances: MIcrosoave, diswhasher, etc, hav eone purpose. Social: Enterprsie content management, forums, blogs, discussion groups, all these things are trying to get people to work together more effectively. For me the Yammer was a social experiement form the beginning. "I want people to workgether using the toosl they have at home." The n there's no learning curve. 10-15 years ago the workplace was where you ahd cool technology -- if you wanted to email grandma you did it at work because the Internet was better there.
CARR: Is social in and of itself part of something bigger? LAPING: Its the means, not the end. There's a part of me that would really desire that it stays simple. Social and mobile he thinks of the same wy. So many engage by social via mobile. He gets nervous when peoiple talk about the uberapp taht would mimic the deskop on a tablet. They tried that in the ealry 2000s, it didn't work.
LAPING: "When [Steve] started two years ago, he said we're going to drive innovationin the organzation." One of the ways he innovates is to let people talk without repercussions.
LAPING: customers wanted to bring back the bar. Red Robin started 40 years ago and all they sold was booze and popcorn. Now it's afamily restaurant and customers don't know the have a bar. Drink son menu were outdated drinks "probably really happening drinks in teh 60s and 70s. That's no indictment on anyone's age." Managers started concocting new drinks, compliance said you can't talk about that. "We asked our compliance officeres to sort of retreat a little bit."
LAPING: RR is a $9.99 burger. #1 reason for customer lapses is affordabiliyty -- they'd rather spend $10 on a steaky. They have teh Tavern Burger, a $6.99 burger in April with bottomless fries and there is some topping. WE thought people would come in, eat the burgers, and go on Facebook and tell RR about it. But instead customers were verbal with "team members" about what they thought about the burgers, the team members told managers, managers went on Yammer. They had one burger called the Pigout, with aioli and bacon. But customers wanted more bacon. That got to the maangers, and within four weeks had kitchen-tested an improvement, taht would have been 18 months itn epast. Theyw ould hav sold it for three months, looked at disappointing sales data, brought in focus groups, iterated more focus groups. "This proces got condensed in four weeks. It wa a simple use cse for the power of social media, but in our business it was a transfomraive use case."
Carr: When you looked at Yammer you thought it was somethiing you coudl use in yoru own team? LAPING: He got enamored with "wanting a captive social network in the company" in 2009. He wanted someine on the orgainzaton to do it -- corpcomm, HR. But then he realized pushing change was his job. He realized he needs this tool. To engage feedback with team memberes. 26K team memrs in restaurnts, 289 in home office. "We're just outnumbered I neede peopel to evangelize change to each other, and I needed people to support each other."
Steve saw best practices in IT for driving strategy, executing with project management, and discipline and stuite around change managemnet. Why would they just run IT this way?
Role started two years ago when RR got a new CEO. The've been profitable a while, but they had stalled, weren't growing as fast as competitors. New CEO steve had new ideas as any new leadr does. But RR had no platfomr for stage.
LAPING: "The CIO role is execatly what you woudl expect in any organzation. I'm charged with focusioong on innovation and looking at emergin technologies anad figuring out how to integrate those technologies into the business and using it to drive business improvement."
Biz transformation is "focused on change, on enabling and driving change."
Laping articulated well how social and mobile could be an element of change. A store manager said it was wonderful to see RR adopt new technology (Carr says_)
Laping is CIO and SVP of business transformation at Red Robin. He got the addiitional title when a new CEO came in and the CEO heard that the company was dysfunctional in some ways. Laping stepped up.
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