Getting Answers Via Internal Microblogging

From Question To Answer In Seconds

I love when I personally experience one of the benefits, that we marketing people hype up when pitching to customers. Here is a true story…

This morning I was setting up a new soft-phone on my MacBook, and I could not get it to connect to our PBX. I searched for the information in our wiki, and while I did find the setup instructions, I was having problems with connecting. Did I call the HelpDesk, or email Support? No. I posted the question on Socialtext Signals, our internal micro-blogging platform.

Within seconds, a coworker (in Taipei) provided me the answer and I was up and running.

To be clear, this is not about adding extra responsibilities to your Support staff by having them monitor yet another location. You can see that I asked this question openly, with no expectations of who would answer. Asking questions openly provides the opportunity for anyone in the company to answer. Audrey is not in Support, but she had the answer I needed, and was able to easily reach out and solve my problem.

Internal microblogging enables anyone to help everyone. Regardless of job function or time zone, people can share the knowledge they have to assist others.

How would you have found the answer at your company, and how long would it have taken?

If you are not using Signals today, I encourage you to give it a try.

Socialtext Signals

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