Last night, I was reviewing the videos, photos and blog posts written about Simply SMILE, the one-day conference focused on internal communication and social media that took place on September 23, 2013. It was part of Social Media Week London, with the hashtag #smwSMILE.

It all reminded me what a valuable, useful and enjoyable event it was. So many people – presenters and participants alike – sharing their knowledge and experiences that offered genuine insight into what many people have done and are doing in their organizations where social media plays a major role in enabling those organizations to achieve their measurable communication goals.

SMILE – which stands for Social Media In Large Enterprises – is the largest one-day event in Europe dedicated to exploring how large companies and organizations are using social media tools behind the firewall.

Things kicked off with a run-through of the results of a survey carried out by Rachel Miller into social media use within large enterprises. Reassuring results showing 87 percent of those responding to the survey saying they do, up from 72 percent a year ago.

So for the majority, SMILE was about learning more, exchanging experiences, finding out what others are doing, sharing questions, sharing problems and finding some answers.

For the 8 percent “thinking about it,” SMILE unquestionably offered valuable knowledge that would help them determine how to get balls rolling in their organizations. Ditto the 5 percent who aren’t doing anything yet.

I took part in the event, one of twelve moderators who facilitated individual discussion and conversation on particular topics during a 30-minute morning session.

My topic was leadership communication and I was very pleased to have ten people crowded around a table to exchange views, ask questions and discuss their experiences and ideas. They came from organizations of different types including those in regulated industries.

It pleasantly surprised me that everyone was so forthcoming, both with ideas and questions, as well as with sharing some thorny issues relating to leadership and social media that they’re trying to address within their own organizations.

It’s quite clear that not everything is plain sailing when it comes to introducing new thinking and new ways of doing things within large organizations where leadership commitment is pretty important. You’re in a bit of a quandary if that commitment is less than you really expect, or isn’t there at all.

Even though the session was strictly 30 minutes, I used a deck, embedded below, not as a presentation tool but on a tablet as a means of keeping the discussion focused and to enable me to be sure to address some key points that were central to the overall discussion. People told me they found the deck pretty helpful; I made it available on Slideshare where you can download it, too.

The day was filled with some terrific presentations and discussions. SMILE chief organizer Marc Wright uploaded a huge deck (92 slides) to Slideshare that is the deck of record of all the presentations and discussions that went on during the day.

Things I learned from two presentations in particular have stuck with me since last week:

• The City of London Corporation who introduced social media into the organization without any formal strategic plan. What they did have was bags of belief and passion and a leadership that firmly supports the notion of enabling employees to use social media. Make it happen! That’s the battle won right there. (There’s a great case study about the the City of London Corporation and its use of social media on the Simply Communicate website. You’ll need to register to read it.)
• The European Commission uses Yammer for internal private social networking. Not an extraordinary idea in itself – Yammer is a staple of internal communication in many organizations. But EC employees increasingly chat in their native language – potentially, in any one of the 24 official languages of the European Union rather than only in English-as-a-second-language – and the translate feature in Yammer presents a chat text to you in your language. ‘Machine’ translation, to be sure, via Microsoft translate, but good enough from what I’ve seen of it. Disappearing barriers when you can just talk in your native tongue knowing with confidence that the other person will understand you.

Others who were there have written some excellent posts recounting their thoughts, what stood out for them and what they derived from being part of SMILE. A handful of note to mention:

• Comms pros gather and SMILE by Rachel Miller.
• simply SMILE: what’s in it for me? by Emma Bridger.
• Paolo Cederle – The Social CEO by Silvia Cambié.
• Opened enterprise. Inside internal social media of large organisations by Matthew Walko.
• A tale of two conferences by Kevin Ruck.
• Chasing success, is it really out there? by Nick Crawford.
• The European Commission goes Digital by Silvia Cambié.

Plus the videos of presentations and photos of everyone I mentioned earlier. And the excellent Storify curation created by Gloria Lombardi (who did a superb job in making sure things went smoothly on the day).

Simply, SMILE was excellent.

Related posts:

• Talking social internal communication at #smwSMILE
• Don’t be like the pointy-haired boss
• Leadership is about conversations
• Social media in the workplace: Still a long haul