Yesterday we put a post out on BlueShirt Nation (BSN) that told the users we’re going to undertake a major evolution of the site.  Essentially BSN as it exists today will go away.

A core philosophy that we try very hard to live up to is to be more attached to what we’re learning than to a specific idea.

From the early days of BSN, this was no more apparent than when we took what was a concept of a social network to the users we thought would want to participate. We learned that our idea (build a network so we could understand our customer problems better) wasn’t exactly what the users wanted.  I found this video last week- it was buried in some old files.  Its a video from the Hack Slams we did before we launched BSN.  Twenty employees volunteered to come in and tell us what they thought about the site- why they’d use it, why they wouldn’t, what the social contract had to be in order for them to trust it. It was a key time in our learning as we shaped that core philosophy- our idea wasn’t as important as what we learned from these 20 people at the Hack Slams.

Part of moving from the idea to the learning is to look at the impact an initiative has on a culture.  More importantly is understanding how evolving an idea can continue to push that culture.  BSN was the first Social Network within Best Buy.  It helped break down barriers between individual stores and between corporate and the stores.  It gave employees a voice that mattered.  It allowed people to build networks they couldn’t have before.  It allowed collaboration, information sharing, and it let people be social – to connect to others based on common interests.  It also helped push our culture to embrace ideas from anywhere, to push legal and HR to get comfortable with these types of tools.  It was a long hard road to get BSN accepted.  But it worked and there were great benefits.  One of the best benefits is that other tools followed.  Just like BSN was built by tools that preceded it, new tools have been built on its shoulders.  They’re solving new problems, pushing the culture in different ways, and reaping benefits of their own.

We feel like BSN has made the biggest impact that its going to in its current form.  The evolution is called BSN Mix.  Its a new platform aimed at solving a new problem.  That problem is something that some in the organization call the ‘GearBox.’

Like any large organization, as we’ve gotten bigger, we’ve added communication mechanisms and support functions to facilitate employee to employee conversations.   The combination of communication loops and support teams has created a ‘gearbox’ that significantly hampers direct feedback.  And facing an economic climate like we’ve never seen, efficiency becomes crucial.  Letting and enabling the network of people help each individual node by answering questions and sharing what we know is the only way we’ll be able to survive (in my opinion).

This is a critical problem and one that we think can be solved in part by Social Technology.

BSN Mix is task-oriented.  Its Twitteresque.  It lets users post a note, ask a question, or seek a rapid response.  You can contribute to it from the web, SMS or an Outlook plug-in (which are the three main ways our employees work).   Users can create groups around topics, departments, whatever.  You can subscribe to groups or individuals and get instant updates via email or SMS.  It moves from asynchronous communication to near-synchronous.  Something that BSN lacked.

But like any technology, the success of BSN Mix will rely heavily on the culture and its willingness to try.  I hope that in the environment we’re facing, we’ll make the decision to try, to reinvent ourselves, and to continue to focus on the learning, not the idea.  But there are obstacles- outlined here in Gary Koelling’s post- Social Technology in a Tough Economy

We made BSN Mix available a little over a month ago.  People are figuring it out, trying it, suggesting ways to make it better.  The mood around it feels hopeful.  I think the urgency in our business realities will be telling.  Will people be willing to try something new or will we choose to practice what we know.  Time will tell…