In 2006, Steve Bendt and Gary Koelling, two Best Buy social networking employees, developed a corporate sponsored social network site that is voluntary, and operates outside of the corporate firewall, where any employee can access it.
Blue Shirt Nation is a community of Best Buy employees who gather regularly to share their knowledge, best practices, satisfactions, and dissatisfactions. The community facilitates the exchange of ideas among employees at each level and encourages collaboration, according to Best Buy Getting Results from Social Network, an article by Patrick Thibodeau.
In order to promote the new social network, Bendt and Koelling traveled to Best Buy stores across the nation to gain feedback about the plan from sales associates. They passed out t-shirts to each employee at the locations. After one year of promotion, 20,000 employees were users of Blue Shirt Nation, according to the Business Innovation Factory.
Today, Blue Shirt Nations continues to grow and it has become a place for employees to help each other problem-solve retail store operation issues.
The social network has led to increased innovation and associate satisfaction. For example, executives announced changes to employees’ discounts, and employees wrote a lot of feedback on issue via the social network. The feedback prompted senior management to reassess the discount plan.
The largest impact the Blue Shirt Nation has presented is the increased enrollment in the company’s 401K program. In January 2007, the company launched a contest on Blue Shirt Nation, inviting employees to create online videos about what a 401K plan means to them, according to Best Buy Finds Social Networking and 401Ks Can Be a Good Fit, an article by Jessica Marquez. The contest, which also had an in-store competition, ended in March. By then, participation had increased by forty-seven percent, according to Marquez.
Blue Shirt Nation is another example of the power of social media and online collaboration.
Watch the Steve Bendt and Gary Koelling shares their experiences about creating Blue Shirt Nation
I’m glad you posted about this because I was interested in hearing more about it after the video in class. I think the idea of a “firewall” being taken down is literal and figurative. Just as you wrote, blogging outside of the corporate firewall allows more people to access it. Also, maybe outside of social networking, the fact that the two personally surveyed stores is very intriguing. I agree with you that this is an excellent example of the power of social media. Employees are happier and the company is getting more interactive feedback from its employees so they can be better.
Kim,
I found this to be a very valuable idea. When you establish a voluntary social media that can be accessed outside of the company firewall, it provides employees a feeling of connectedness to the Best Buy community that they couldn’t find otherwise.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that employee satisfaction went up, as I’m sure the employees felt that had more say in what was going on in the company and the drive to sell and be a member of the exclusive community of Best Buy Employees increased. I commend Best Buy for implementing this form of social media.