by Bill Cushard, (@BillCush)

Atlassian recently posted a great blog showing examples of types of blog posts you can have people in your company publish to make your Confluence Intranet more social. Reading their ideas encouraged me to reflect on the many types of blog posts we publish at ServiceRocket that increase collaboration and social interaction among our five global offices. Some were right out of the Atlassian blog post, but we also have other types of posts that are very popular and spark collaboration between people all over the world. Some are just for fun and truly bring people together, others improve collaboration and productivity.

I thought I would share some of those examples to give you an idea of how you can make your Confluence Intranet even more social.

The New Hire Welcome Blog

Atlassian has a process in which every new hire must post an introductory blog post within their first week on the job. This is an easy way to introduce people to internal blogging, but also a great way for people to meet each other. We do the same thing, but we add a step. We also have hiring managers write a welcome blog for each new hire describing briefly who they are, what their role will be, and include a photo. Here is an example of a Welcome Blog.

Ask Questions

What better way to get people talking about a subject and getting your work done than by asking an open-ended question that everyone at a company can read and respond to. We use Confluence Questions to do just that. With Confluence Questions, anyone can pose question and anyone can offer answers. I have used it to create an industry certification exam for a customer, and people in our offices use it to ask any number of questions and get work done. You could ask a question about a project you are working on before going home for the night, and wake up the next morning with seven answers that will help you finish a project that day. Though not strictly blogging, Confluence Questions will make your intranet more social and help get more work done.

Photo Updates of Happenings Around the Office

The photo update blog is one of my favorites, and if I ran the numbers, I would bet our photo blog posts get more comments and likes than all the rest. Seeing pictures of peers working and/or having fun brings things to life and helps connects people through faces and names, which is especially important when you work in a distributed environment all over the world. We never (or hardly ever) meet our peers in person with whom we work around the world, but pictures can make it feel more like you are meeting people in person.

Two fun examples from our Intranet come from two recent blog posts. Erin Rand, our Chief Operating Officer posted this picture of Jesse Miller, our Product Manager working nimbly and creatively with white boards (Erin and Jesse both work in our Palo Alto office). That post received a lot of likes and comments, especially from ServiceRocket people in other offices.

Another example comes from one of our technical consultants in our Santiago office, Yel Legaspi who wrote in a photo blog post, "I have always been a fan of Boston.com's The Big Picture and I thought I'd do something like that with what's happening month by month here in Santiago. All photos were taken using a Nexus 5."

Yel proceeded to post several pictures of recent events in our Santiago office. I can tell you, as someone from our Palo Alto office, I felt a lot closer to those I have worked with remotely, but have never met in person.

Public Goal Setting

There is certainly something to be said for sticking your neck out and making a public display of one's goals. Using a blog post on your Confluence Intranet, you can write out a list of goals you plan to achieve over a specific time period. It could be for a sprint you are working on that is due in 2 weeks or it could even be a list of personal goals. Not only can you increase the chance of achieving your goals by writing them down and making them public, but you would also get people to encourage you, help you, and even join you in your quest.

Public Recognition

Do not ever underestimate the power of publicly recognizing your peers for doing great work in any context. But when you write an internal blog post on your Confluence Intranet and publicly call out Cynthia's extra effort in helping you finish a task, not only do you make Cynthia feel great and motivated to do it again, but you rally everyone else in your company to recognize Cynthia's work too. Try one of these blog posts and watch the likes and comments pile up.

The Hot Seat

The Hot Seat is a video blog that we do once a month to shine a spotlight on an employee. A video blog takes a bit of work, but it is a great and dynamic way to introduce employees to the rest of the company in a personal way. People love to watch videos and a video interview that includes both professional and fun personal topics will help people feel more connected to the interviewee, even though they have never met.

Why Make Your Confluence Intranet More Social?

Above are seven examples, in addition to what Atlassian shared on it's blog post, of how you can make your Confluence Intranet more social. If you want to break down barriers, foster a more collaborative working environment, create a better place to work, and get more work done, you must figure out a way to make your intranet more social.

How do you make your Intranet social? I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

If you want to learn more about making your Confluence Intranet more social, consider taking our Confluence training courses.

[subscribe2]