Merck, Communities, Mafia Wars, and Reducing the Risks of Social Media Tools

Merck is one of the most successful life sciences companies out there – and they are doing great things in the Enterprise 2.0 space. In a series of social media interviews with Bob McGuire, the Executive Director SBS, Enterprise Portal & Support Services at Merck, we wanted to share a couple of interesting things that Merck is doing – socially speaking.

Use Mafia Wars to teach community values

“One of the things I really struggle with is that people don’t get communities – and so I use Mafia Wars.” - Bob McGuire

In an interview during the E2.0 Conference in Boston in June, Bob discusses an innovative approach of getting people to understand the value and behavior of communities by having them try out Mafia Wars – and “the reason it works is because your power is driven by how many connections you have.” It’s clear that something like Mafia Wars can help people understand how to work in a community – a group larger than what people are traditionally familiar with. Bob goes on to mention other dimensions of why this is of value – in teaching reciprocity: “you can’t accomplish tasks unless you trade gifts.” Clearly, this is another great approach to help people understand and feel more comfortable with social collaboration inside the enterprise, especially for digital immigrants and older generations who would not explore and experience these tools on their own. The interview ends with a very funny anecdote where Bob is talking with some of his colleagues about the game when someone blurts out “You pimped your mom out.” This apparently made his mom happy because as a result, she got a boost of a few levels in the game. To watch the whole video, visit http://vimeo.com/12641317. 

Provide social media tools inside the firewall to reduce legal risks

“Employees are going to go out and use social media tools. If we don’t provide them social media tools that meet their needs, and we don’t provide them in a way that allows us to archive, allows us to set policy, enforce policy, and monitor what is going on, then what is going to happen is we get into trouble either with information privacy laws or with legal issues that pop up that relate to regulatory rules, or even some of the litigation that we might get involved in.” - Bob McGuire

This is clearly a situation that most organizations are currently facing. Their staff is using social media tools on the web and they are sharing information that can be potentially damaging to a company. Not only that, but this information disclosure could create regulatory compliance issues, depending on your industry. Merck has faced this issue straight on and what seemed like it was going to be an internal hurdle to overcome (e.g. the legal issues of having social media applications in-house), it turned out to be positive for the company. Implementing social computing tools in-house carried much less risk than employees using them on the Internet or with third-party tools that the company has no control over.  Further, Merck has taken this a step further, not only viewing social computing as a risk to mitigate, but embracing it as a way to create an engaging, collaborative workplace for their employees. “Hopefully over time, we begin to create this sense of community where I do my work,” indicates Bob.

Check out this full interview with Bob and also learn how Merck is using NewsGator: http://aiimcommunities.org/e20/blog/conversation-mercks-bob-maguire-onemerck-and-one-place-work