Innovation + Responsibility

It is no secret to anyone who knows me that my latest obsession these days is Facebook.  I admit it, I was a late adopter, but there is nothing like the zeal of a convert, and converted I am.

 
I have actually been a reluctant recruit to the world of social networking.

*I joined Friendster in its early days and found it, well, useless. Except for the occasional reminder of a long lost friend's birthday (which was useful when I wanted to seem clever and thoughtful and send that friend a birthday note even though we hadn't spoken in years), Friendster seemed not to serve much of a purpose.
*Then there's LinkedIn. I have been a mostly passive user of LinkedIn. It seemed like one of those things everyone was joining when I got to business school - I was getting invitations constantly so I decided to join. Since then I have been like an ungracious party guest - accepting invitations but never extending my own.  I consciously skipped the whole MySpaceI was too young for it (though admittedly I am now right in the sweet spot)! 
*I am starting to get more and more Doostang invitations - these I mostly ignore because (1) I can't remember my sign-in name from when I joined it about a year and a half ago, and (2) well, what kind of name is Doostang anyway?

thing - I always thought I was too old for it and then, lo and behold, it turns out

 
So when my boss sent me an IM a month or so ago and suggested I join Facebook, well, how could I say no?  If I thought I was too old for MySpace, I knew I was too old for Facebook.  But my boss is even older than I am - and anyway he's my boss. So on I went.  And I have been mildly obsessed with it ever since. While I don't entirely understand why I love it so much, what about it makes me want to hang out on there, I can tell you that after about two months (and 103 friends - yes Facebook can also be a popularity contest!) I am not even close to being sick of it.  In fact, I find myself thinking of new Facebook applications almost every day. I keep thinking that it's too bad I'm not an engineer - I could spend a lot of my time building apps to run in Facebook.

 
One of the reasons I get so excited about Facebook is that I believe it can have great and powerful implications for our planet.  The "causes" application, for example, which allows you to recruit people to join causes that are important to you (and these causes have a fundraising function).  I added the causes application because I noticed one of my friends had added it.  From there several of my friends added it after seeing it on my profile. And I am sure it went on and on from there.  Now people are inviting me to join their cause (so far I have joined Creative Commons).
 

Or the "I Am Green" application, which allows you to "measure" your eco responsibility and share that publicly with your friends. It also encourages you to set goals for future eco behaviors and to recruit friends to follow your lead. Every day I notice more and more people adding this application. 

 
Given the fact that the Sun Microsytems network on Facebook has more than 2000 people in it - and it is growing daily - I get excited (admittedly I am a bit of a dork) just thinking about the potential power of the platform to reach and engage our employees around our corporate responsibility initiatives.  I have a vision, I tell you. I call it Sunbook. Originial, eh?

 
When we release our Web-based 2007 CSR report on October 4, I plan to announce it to the Sun Microsystems network on Facebook. If even half of the Sun folks on Facebook take a look at the report when we launch it, that would be  reach four times as many employees as looked at it after the initial launch of our 2006 report.

 
What if the Sun Foundation used Facebook to recruit volunteers to a cause? Our mission is to eliminate the digital divide, so why not add this platform to the set of vehicles the Foundation uses to recruit and energize volunteers throughout our global employee network?  Perhaps for next year's Global Giving Drive and/or Worldwide Volunteer Week we will be able to use Facebook as a way to increase involvement.

 
I get positively dizzy when I think about the possibilities Facebook presents for our OpenWork program.  When 55 percent of your employees do not work from an assigned location, issues of culture and connection are sure to present themselves.  I believe Facebook offers incredible opportunities for Sun to keep people connected, no matter where in the world they are working on any given day.  Picture this:

I am working out of our offices in New York City for the day. I sign into Facebook and in the "status" section of my OpenWork app I enter in my OpenWork info for the day - where I am, the office number, my extension - and then I check a box that allows everyone in the Sun network to see that info (The turbo version of this application would sync the Facebook Open Work app with SunReserve so that your information is automatically in Facebook when you login and all you have to do is check the box to show the information to others, if you so choose).  It also allows me to do a search for people in the network that are in my same location that day (the turbo version could automatically tell me who is around me). Chances are I have never met any of these people.  But now I see who is in the office next to me - his name, what he does for Sun, a little something about him that allows me to make a connection beyond the fact that we both work at Sun.  Perhaps I invite him to lunch. Better yet, what if I could post a message to all the people on "Sunbook" in NYC that day suggesting we go out to lunch or happy hour? Or asking about the best place to go for a run near the office, since I am from out of town?

Next thing you know we are creating a sense of community that may sometimes get lost with more than half the workforce working from home or a drop-in center at least one - two days a week. That sense of community makes me feel more connected to my employer. And I don't know a lot about Organizational Development, but I am thinking that a stronger connection to my employer leads to greater employee satisfaction.  Surely that leads to increased productivity. Which translates directly into positive business results for the company.

So if anyone reads this blog and if you happen to be a Sun engineer who knows how to build a Facebook application and you are interested in collaborating on this project, please let me know!  And in the meantime, see you on Facebook.

"Ottomeister's" comment on my "Redeemable Behavior" entry was dead-on.  The signs in the cafeteria are poorly placed and poorly worded - two features that are sure not to move people to action!  Don't get me wrong - Sun employees are smart enough to realize that recycling shouldn't go away with the new "green" cafeteria initiative.  And if they are doing it at home, why aren't they doing it at work, too (or at least wondering how to do it at work)? (I've been saying this for a while but as this recent survey shows, most people don't bring their green selves to work with them!)  Nonetheless, the signs are doing nothing to modify behavior and increase recycling. 

 
So yesterday I emailed the President of Guckenheimer, who by now is surely sick of hearing from me, but who once again displayed an excellent level of service to Sun!   He immediately forwarded my email to the VP of Operations and by early morning today I had a message from Guckenheimer's Director of N. American operations. 

 
I learned that Guckenheimer, like me, is none too pleased about the fact that folks are throwing trash into the recycling and composting bins. Why? Well, for one thing, they are really trying to eco-fy their operations and we aren't helping any!  Did you know that at the end of the day the janitorial staff has to go through those recycling and composting bins to get rid of the materials that aren't supposed to be there - namely the trash - so that they can properly dispose of the rest of it? I had no idea!  I figured  that if trash went in to the recycling bin, the recycling bin essentially just became a trash bin.  Not so!  It remains recycling, but now it is contaminated by trash and so someone has to dig through and separate out what can be salvaged for recycling.   Not only is this a total waste of time, in the long term this can be a total waste of money, too. Think about it - if the janitorial staff is spending extra time sorting our trash (rather than us sorting it ourselves), perhaps their labor costs will go up...which will translate directly into increased costs for Guckenheimer which means cafeteria prices at Sun will increase eventually.  But we can nip this in the bud!

 
So, we (the Guckenheimer Director of N. American Operations and I) committed to finding a solution that would address this issue operationally (what signs should we put where? how many recycling bins should we have and where should they go?) as well as behaviorally (how can we get Sun employees to bring their green selves to the cafeteria and separate their recycling from their trash?).

 
How will we do it? To be honest, I am not exactly sure. One idea the Guckenheimer folks are going to try is this:

This sign will replace the (admittedly confusing) signs there now:

 

Those bins will go back to just being trash.

So where will employees recycle? Well, this sign is going up over the tray return area:

 

 So employees will leave recyclables and compostables on their trays and the cafeteria staff will take care of it behind the line. This way they are not going through trash at the end of the day trying to separate everything out. They can do it as the items come through the tray return.

 I'm not sure this will work but it's definitely worth a try. Oh, and this will happen at all campuses in North America, not just Menlo Park.

Additionally,  we are going to get together - me, the Guckenheimer folks, the property management folks and the janitorial contractor - and see what else we can figure out - more recycling bins around the cafeteria, around the campus, etc.  I'll be sure and update this space with the results of our discussion and collaboration.

Anyone have any good ideas? Let me know and I can bring them up at our meeting!