The Social Network Roadmap(SM) enables commercial, nonprofit and government enterprises to create more value with social business, social networking and other disruptive Web 3.0 technologies. The Social Network Roadmap (“SNR”) is a framework of tools, processes and services that helps managers to mitigate social business risks across the entire social business life cycle, which we define as Feasibility, Strategy, Pilot, Scale and Integrate. Several years of client work have validated the premise of SNR: organizations that use strategy and lean project management to minimize mistakes can adopt social business more aggressively and efficiently than their rivals.

Social Network Roadmap(SM) Use Cases

SNR is distinguished by its robust strategy, so people who realize the most value are often in high-stakes situations like these:

• M&A—Management is preparing to sell the firm or merge and wants to engage stakesholders like regulators, potential buyers and analysts as well as clients. These are often fast-cycle engagements with high risk, so the firm wants to use strategy to get it right the first time.
• Post-merger integration—Firm leadership wants a strategy for superior outplacement, attracting new talent and better collaboration among employees.
• Go-to-market—The executive team wants a strategy to use social networks to support a major go-to-market initiative.
• StartRight—The company has little/no experience, limited resources and wants to minimize unproductive experimentation. These firms typically have very conservative cultures in which idle experimentation is very risky, so they want strategy to help them aim before firing.
• NegativeUGC—The firm or a close competitor has suffered from painful “user-generated content” like United, Domino’s, KFC or McDonald’s and management wants to mitigate the risk that it will happen to them.
• NextLevel—Various groups have experimented with any combination of Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging, Twitter and YouTube with mixed results, and management wants to formalize and expand the approach by using strategy to formalize and coordinate intent.
• Orphans—The organization has launched blog(s)/Facebook Pages/LinkedIn Groups/Twitter accounts and abandoned them because they didn’t have the resources to engage readers. It requires explicit strategy to focus its interactions in major platforms.
• Lackluster—The department has built its own social network with Lotus Connections, Microsoft Sharepoint or a pureplay platform like Ning, Small World Labs or Groupsites—with tepid results. They admit that they don’t know what they are doing, or what’s possible, so they use strategy to regroup.
• EmployeeAlumni—Managers have heard about using social networks to change the alumni approach and want a means to pilot an alumni social network to drive down recruiting and business development costs.
• Industry-focused social business opportunity—Here is a summary of some of the most exciting social business opportunities we see in financial services, healthcare and others.

The Social Network Roadmap in Three Tracks

Since organizations are at all stages of adopting social business, the Social Network Roadmap(SM) has three tracks (levels of service):

• SNR Preliminary is quickly educates your team about social networks’ relevance to your industry and organization. This is an effective way to bring people up the learning curve while realizing social business potential for your industry and firm.
• SNR Pilot is a quick-hit way to plan, launch, manage and measure the results of social business pilots.
• SNR Enterprise is an enterprise-strength process for organizing a commercial or government enterprise’s social business initiatives, policies and strategy across all phases of the adoption life cycle, including feasibility, strategy, pilot, scale and integrate.

Social Network Roadmap(SM) Preliminary

We use the SNR when leading briefings, seminars and workshops to familiarize teams with how social networks are relevant to their businesses, what their peers and competitors are doing and how they might respond. We conduct private briefings for executive teams, we lead workshops at conferences, and we hold our own events. Workshops also work well in conjunction with global or national company meetings, or conferences. Most briefings and workshops are 1/2 to two days, and they feature structured learning, activities, takeaways and materials.

More on executive briefings and workshops here.

Social Network Roadmap(SM) Pilot
Phase One	Phase Two	Phase Three
Assess digital social environment Identify & rank stakeholders (SHs) & basic work processes Social venue analysis Competitor/Brand analysis SNR Analytics	Firm Competency Analysis Stakeholder Issues & Actions (activity, workstreams) Social Business Trial Pilots Social Business Good Practices Firm Resource Analysis Organization Analysis	[Social Business/Media Policy] Pilots designed to mitigate risk Fast cycles with rapid feedback Small investments Portfolio approach Knowledge transfer focus Learn by doing
Deliverables
[Prediagnostic Brief] Stakeholder Analysis Brief Workstream Analysis Brief Venue Analysis Brief Brand Analysis Brief Opportunity Analysis Brief Ecosystem Map & Report	Firm Competency Brief Stakeholder Issues & Actions Brief Social Business Trial Pilots Brief Social Business Good Practices Brief Firm Resources Brief Organizational Analysis Brief Social Business Strategy 4-6 Pilots summarized and prioritized 6-8 quarter social business rollout roadmap	[Social Business/Media Policy] Pilot charters/run pilots Champion, Manager & Contributor templates Lead & mentor teams through pilots Social business metrics tested by/iterated in pilots Mentoring in how to set up, expand and manage conversation [Social Business Competency Team set-up] Measurement and iteration: Scale successes Kill what doesn’t work
End State
Ecosystem (external) Vision	Enterprise (internal) Vision/Strategy	Pilot(s)/Execution
More information	More information

Social Network Roadmap(SM) Enterprise
Phase One	Phase Two	Phase Three
Due Diligence Vision Digital social impact on your industry How you look Identify stakeholders Workers, partners Internal customers Investors Evaluate process suitability for pilots Feasibility of using RSS, mashups Baseline Evaluate current state Enterprise 2.0 “Pfacebook” Intranet Consumer initiatives Data flow facility Pinpoint critical internal data Gap analysis Governance Policies & rules Confront fears Define proprietary Define what’s shared where Employees + (partner extranet) Security plan and procedures Legal, HR, process owners… Social Business Policy & Guidelines	Ecosystem Audit Assess digital social environment Identify & rank stakeholders (SHs) Create stakeholder personas Conduct venue analysis Engage SH leaders Influencer analysis Apply SNR Analytics Organization Audit Define SH activity/workstreams Map firm USP to digital social venues: Trial Pilots Assess resources to engage SHs Organization analysis Mitigate gaps Finalize Social Business Strategy Social Business Competency Team SBCT Charter & Champions Competencies Mentoring program Culture change Alumni program Create Social Network Life Cycle Model Define metrics schema & baselines	Pilot Design pilots to mitigate risk Fast cycles with rapid feedback Small investments Portfolio approach Skills transfer focus Measurements Scale Morph pilots into programs Alumni, training Reward systems Use social networks to drive growth Formalize programs Budgets Teams Accountability Rewards Integrate Mainstream social network work processes Reengineer legacy processes Solicit stakeholder-driven innovation Products, services Support processes Business model Businesses
End State
Opportunity report + numerous interim deliverables	Adoption strategy + numerous interim deliverables	Business results