How Dell Trained 9,000 on Social Media

Chances are you haven't yet heard of SMaC U, nor know anyone who might have gone to school there. But if you work for Dell, chances are better than 10% that you have taken at least one of its classes. The acronym stands for Social Media and Community University, and so far more than 9,000 of Dell's employees from all over the world have attended at least one of its numerous classes on how to use social media.

I had an opportunity to visit Dell's headquarters last month and see a small part of their extensive training program first-hand, and why they are so popular. It is an impressive effort, and while you may not have the need to train as many people in your organization, there are several takeaways that you can use for your own situation, and how you can improve your own training program or even leverage some of the lessons that Dell has learned along the way.

Dell has an impressive social media presence online, and has been written about frequently for its achievements in listening to its customers (see my CMO.com article from last February here. But it is Dell's training that lies at the core of their efforts.

Ironically, Dell's effort began with little budget or staff, and that was exactly the right genesis for what later became SMaC U. "Originally, we thought we would hire an outside agency and build out the course content," said Liz Brown, the Social Media & Community Director who was one of the instructors in my class. They then thought they would develop an online class. But neither of these was going to work, because of the absence of any budget.  Plus, do you really want to teach social media online? "You had to do the class in person, this is so critical to employee engagement, so we needed bodies in the room and the interaction with fellow students."

Dell wanted at least one class that would educate its staff on social media policy, appropriate and inappropriate use of various social media platforms, corporate governance and strategic use of social media. That is a lot to teach in one sitting, and thus began SMaC U, with a sequence of classes much like a college department.

Brown worked with another colleague, Amy Tennison, to develop the first set of courses. "We put together the first training slide decks ourselves," said Brown. Eventually, the operation grew to be big enough to support additional staff, and they hired others who were professional trainers. Now they offer classes almost every work day, with some of them being conducted via remote screen-sharing Adobe Connect sessions to reach Dell employees all over the globe.

David Strom is one of the leading experts on network and Internet technologies. He has written and spoken extensively on topics such as VOIP, convergence, email, network management, Internet applications, wireless and Web services for more than 25 years.

See here for all of David's Tom's IT Pro articles.