Slides from a presentation I gave at the Melcrum Social Media Forum in March 2007. After three years experimenting with blogging internally, we had six months earlier released a new tool which centralised blogging and opened it up for everyone in the organisation

1. Shared Experience:
Blogging to create a more
engaged workforce
Richard Hare
21st March 2007

2. British American Tobacco at a glance
World’s most international tobacco group
 Business in 180 countries, over 300 brands
 Global market share approx.16%
 Market leadership in more than 50 countries
 Over 90,000 employees
Most recent performance
 £23.9 bn gross turnover
 £ 2.4 bn profit from operations
 £15.4 bn tax contribution
PICTURE 4 PICTURE 3 PICTURE 2 PICTURE 1
Drag picture over Drag picture over Drag picture over Drag picture over
square to align or square to align or square to align or square to align or
delete square if delete square if delete square if delete square if
pictures are not pictures are not pictures are not pictures are not
required required required required

3. Total Shareholder Return v FTSE100
5 year growth in value of a hypothetical £100 Holding
British American Tobacco: £326
FTSE 100: £107
Based on 30 trading day average values

4. Culture: Goal
 “Foster an open, confident culture that encourages
change and innovation, is shaped by the Guiding
Principles and inspires people to perform and
enjoy”
 Enterprising Spirit
 Open Minded
 Freedom through Responsibility
 Strength from Diversity

5. Culture: Your Voice
British American Tobacco
BAT OVERALL 2006 (38719) vs. 2 BENCHMARKS
Category 2: Open Minded
Total
Unfavour-
Total Favourable Diff ? able
13. Little effort is made to get the opinions and A 51 10 39
thinking of employees in this company. (N)
B 47 4* 10 43 *
C 49 2* 14 * 37 *
17. It is safe to say what you think in this company. A 54 13 33
B 52 2* 13 34 *
C 63 -8 * 13 25 *
31a. This company has established a climate A 65 13 23
where: People can challenge our traditional
ways of doing things B 62 3* 13 25 *
C 66 -2 * 15 * 19 *
33. Differing opinions are openly discussed in A 75 7 18
reaching decisions in my work team.
B 74 1* 7 19 *
C 74 1* 10 * 16 *
0 25 50 75 100
(N) indicates 'Disagreeing' is the Favourable Response * indicates a statistically significant difference
Legend
A. BAT OVERALL 2006 (38719) C. ISR GLOBAL HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPANIES NORM (149193)
B. BAT OVERALL 2005 (35428)

6. 2004: Blogging prototype
“I want to try blogging”
 Tom
(Change and Communications
Manager, Global Operations and
I.T.)

7. 2004: Content Management prototype

8. 2005: Interact

9. 2005: Interact prototype

10. 2005: SiteBuilder

11. 2006: BlogCentral

12. Guidelines

13. Simple: 1…

14. Simple: …2…

15. Simple: …3…

16. Simple: …4…

17. Simple: …done!

18. Posting

19. 2006: Interact

20. Usage
BlogCentral Visitors: Monthly
1600 100.0%
1400 90.0%
80.0%
1200
70.0%
1000 60.0%
800 50.0%
600 40.0%
30.0%
400
20.0%
200 10.0%
0 0.0%
Aug-06 Sep-06 Oct-06 Nov-06 Dec-06 Jan-07
Unique Visitors New Visitors Repeat Visitors Repeat Rate (%)

21. 2007: Interact

22. Loose Change: Tom

23. GSD BlogCast

24. GSD InC

25. Mixks World

26. Product Developer Wannabees

27. A Blogger’s Life…

28. Business Intelligence: Souza Cruz

29. Being An Intern: Germany

30. My Little Project: Social Media

31. BlogCentral: the first 6 months
 123,250 pages viewed
 3118 people visited
 1136 comments
 709 posts
 49 blogs created
 40 “active” blogs (1 post or more)
(Mid-August 2006 – February 2007)

32. Top Ten Blogs
Blog Views Percent Visits Percent
Views Visits
GSD Blogcast 24179 19.6% 6970 37.9%
GSD InC 11952 9.7% 4221 23.0%
The Knowledge 8745 7.1% 2537 13.8%
Loose Change 7384 6.0% 2410 13.1%
Mixks world 2688 2.2% 1537 8.4%
Product Developer Wannabees 2879 2.3% 1223 6.7%
My-Little-Project 1411 1.1% 869 4.7%
Product Complexity Reduction 1379 1.1% 778 4.2%
One Poem Everyday 1693 1.4% 733 4.0%
EAS Blog 981 0.8% 662 3.6%

33. Top Ten Posts
Title Views Percent
Views
GSD Blogcast: Healthy Lifestyle to Chill U Up in KL! 741 0.6%
GSD BlogCast: Turning Into My Dad 540 0.4%
GSD Blogcast - Let voting begin 462 0.4%
GSD InC: Carbon Neutrality? 375 0.3%
GSD BlogCast: Big Rox! 365 0.3%
GSD Blogcast: Never Squeeze Babies or Guinea
Pigs... 327 0.3%
GSD InC: MARCOM Bites: What Else? 316 0.3%
GSD InC: MARCOM Bites... 305 0.2%
My-little-project: Did the Scots invent the modern
world? 299 0.2%
GSD Blogcast: Brilliant Mistake 299 0.2%

34. Summary
 A visionary – Tom kept pushing us
 A tool – not a central initiative
 Guidelines – let writers know what is expected
 Usability – simplify to remove barriers
 Encourage your writers
 Prototype – get feedback
 Become a user yourself

35. Questions / discussion
E-mail: richard_hare@bat.com
richard@flareconsulting.com
Phone: 07747 708119
Web: http://www.richardhare.com