Bluewolf, a global consulting firm, kicked off its' Cloud Innovation Summit in Denver this week, which focused on helping companies to better understand the evolving behavior of their customers as they shift into a more social and mobile world.  ReadyTalk attended the Denver session as both a sponsor and participant to join in on the conversation.

As we continue to rapidly adopt a more social media-centric way of life, companies need to ensure that they continue to foster a culture of collaboration, both internally and externally.  Bluewolf identified three major shifts that are occurring in the business world:

• Producing more (products, services, etc) with less resources
• The workplace, and how we interact with each other, is changing
• The buyer, and how they prefer to interact with their vendor(s), is changing

So, how should these shifts be addressed? By empowering your employees to join the social movement so they can understand how to best succeed in an ever changing workplace, positively contribute to their corporate brand, and, ultimately, better meet their customers' needs.

In order to encourage and enable their employees to 'go social,' Bluewolf took the following steps:

1. Creation of an information portal that provides best practices, tutorials on using various social media sites, and other resources...and in several mediums that appeal to the masses, like short video clips, interactive slide presentations, and PDFs
2. Display of "Pack Profiles" on their website that help visitors to learn more about their employees, such as what they love about Bluewolf, their interests in and out of the office, as well as view their respective social media feeds and past blog posts
3. Foster good, old-fashioned competition...that's modernized through gamification. To encourage ongoing participation, employees are rewarded points based on activities like engagement on Chatter (giving and receiving of comments get extra points!), completed "Pack Profiles," content sharing...the list goes on.

The unofficial results? Bluewolf employees have become very active and engaged with social media, building their profiles as thought leaders on various topics, all while contributing to Bluewolf's overall corporate brand.

How is your company encouraging employees to go social?