They Get Answers, Lots of Them

People in companies run up against problems all the time. They ask themselves for the answer, they ask the people they know - and they sometimes come up with a good answer. What if there was a better way to source answers from a broader set of people, a collective help desk for challenging issues? This is the fundamental vision for Q&A within an enterprise social network.

The good news is this is already happening – people are getting answers, lots of them. In one example social network, we found that each question was getting on average 4 answers. While this number on its own is impressive, there was also a growing momentum around answering questions more generally.   Given a flat number of questions being asked, the number of answers grew and grew (see graph). This suggests an even greater potential for questions and answers combined with increased exposure and promotion to end users.

The most exciting part of all this is the value to end users and companies. Questions are the problems that employees and customers can’t solve. By opening the door up for more and better answers, we create the opportunity to save time and money by helping people resolve their most difficult challenges.

How do you use Q&A in your enterprise social network? Add comments here or ping me at @esauve.