Building a user community

Improving engagement with new technology

Tools

Camtasia

Microsoft SharePoint

Microsoft Yammer

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The problem

Whilst working remotely, the organization moved its workforce to Microsoft 365, introducing them to new applications and new ways of working.
Although the organization subscribed to a paid-for library of skills videos to help with knowledge gaps, users found this catalogue to be too large, and the videos too long to engage with.
As a result, people experienced frustration and resorted to workarounds rather than best-practices.
This resulted in inconsistent and incomplete adoption of the new services, and a large number of questions in a variety of internal forums.

To create a community space where we could deliver key messages in easy to apply language.

Working from an idea of sharing a ‘tip of the week’ video, I contacted colleagues in technology and communications to agree topics for the videos and a process for promoting them.
We agreed that I would produce each video and share it on the internal social network.
I would also write the promotional copy for both the company newsletter which would link readers to it.

After researching each topic, I drafted a plan for the video content and then recorded and edited it in Camtasia.
The editing process focussed on keeping the videos short and the content clear in order to give users an experience of quick success.
Words and captions were avoided as much as possible as the videos would be going to an international audience, some of whom were not native English speakers.
Light-hearted backing music was added to balance the technical topics to make them as enjoyable as possible for a general audience.
Similarly, the social media posts were written in chatty but simple English to be as accessible and appealing as possible.

Over the course of several months, engagement with the videos grew from single figures to over 200 people watching.
During meetings or in hallway conversations, colleagues began telling me how useful they found the videos, commenting on the suitability of their length and level.
The videos created a library where users could catch-up on any they missed, re-watch or re-share with their teams.
Questions in internal forums also went down.