Building a Knowledge Community at Hallmark Cards

1. Building a Knowledge Community at Hallmark Cards Stephanie Baker, Diana Johnson, and Praveen Mohan

2. Hallmark Cards Facts: Facts: President & CEO:Donald J. Hall Jr. Founded:1910 Headquarters:Kansas City, Mo. Ownership:Private Consolidated Annual Revenues:$4.3 billion in 2008 Celebrating 100 years • Employees: • Nearly 14,000 full-time worldwide • 700 artists, designers, stylists, writers, editors, web designers, and photographers • Products: • 18,000 new and redesigned greeting cards and related products per year • 65,000 products available yearly

3. The Hallmark Difference • Committed to creativity • Innovation for success • License to celebrate • A good place to work • Culture collaboration • Beliefs and Values • http://corporate.hallmark.com/Company/Hallmarks-Beliefs-And-Values • http://corporate.hallmark.com/Community

4. Hallmark’s Knowledge Management Team Thomas W. Brailsford - manager Focuses on creating “knowledge products” • making knowledge and information quickly and easily available to business decision makers “By connecting to the marketplace to produce a rich dialogue of perspectives and experiences, the company expects to foster additional sources of innovative ideas”

5. Introduction • Every company looking for ways to grow • Growing top line • Growing bottom line • Now more imaginative and inventive ways to great value • Ideas are the new capital growth • “The ideas are out there”

6. The Nature of Knowledge • Think of knowledge as we think of light • Can be considered both as a • Objective perspective • Process perspective • Knowledge sharing • Community building • Learning efforts

7. The Time Dimension • Overwhelmed with the repositories of data and information • “So what do we know?” • “Knowing what you know.” • “Learning as you go.”

8. Perspectives and Time Dimension

9. Using Knowledge to Create Value • There is no value unless moved from me to you • Money • Knowledge • Can create value when moved • Often overlooked “I’m in the business of selling electrons.”

10. The Nature of Communities • Knowledge domains • Communities • Membership • Roles of sponsors • Informal structure • Dynamic membership • No set standard

11. Rethinking Boundaries Organizational structures within organization create boundaries that impede the flow of knowledge and the sharing of ideas, i.e. Hierarchy tends to create boundaries “Inside-Out” – Traditional view of marketing, where develop a product inside and sell it to consumers Consumer research is essential to understand consumer needs to develop the right product. Make boundaries permeable between consumers and producers by building a community

12. Stimulating Innovation Knowledge communities are an important support for innovation. “Innovation is a function of the rate of Knowledge acquisition” - Thomas Koulopoulos, CEO Delphi Group When success stories or suggested innovations are shared across a community, a richer environment is created for knowledge acquisition. Innovative ideas can occur anywhere in the organization at anytime. Sharing of Knowledge is fundamental to innovation Connectivity available to communities that can share freely across boundaries is a fundamental prerequisite for innovation to occur. If the community can draw upon a variety of perspectives, experience and disciplines, the innovation should be the result of ensuing collaboration

13. Innovation formula • Three basic factors in the quest for Innovation • Connectivity + Content+ Culture = Innovation/Learning • Connectivity: • It is the condition of the internal and external information networks. • How well connected are people? • How well connected is the value chain? Connectivity is a predominantly a technology infrastructure issue in addition to cultural issues

14. Innovation formula • Content: This is the nature, availability and procedures for creating, owning, managing, and valuing content. • Content can be both explicit and tacit • Content can be both dynamic and static • Culture: This embraces the organization and reward structures that either enhance or reward the sharing of valuable content. The Primary metric here is Time Things are moving too fast and everybody is stretched to the limit, so time has become the greatest constraint on innovation and learning

15. Hallmark Idea Exchange Hallmark wanted to reach out and connect with consumers to dialog about variety of issues Hallmark recruited about 150 internet savy consumers with just half of them being Hallmark loyalists. Hallmark sponsored and facilitated the community Hallmark needed a web based collaborative environment that was simple and easy to use, Hallmark partnered with a firm called Communispace Corporation to create an online community

16. Communispace Communispace builds and runs online customer communities where up to 400 prospects and/or customers are prescreened and invited according to a company's criteria. Community members spend an average of 30 minutes per week as active participants in the marketing process: brainstorming ideas, offering advice to one another and to the company, commenting on market trends, responding to surveys, helping the company address business issues, and more. Most community members stay connected for at least a year and engage in an average of four activities each week. Unlike most public customer forums and message boards, private communities are designed to be candid and intimate, resulting in high levels of trust and insights

17. Hallmark Idea Exchange Hallmark idea exchange generated some of the most interesting discussions, exactly what Hallmark had hoped for. Hallmark learned much by observing these member generated discussions Hallmark idea exchange generated most intriguing surveys by some of its members. Another interesting aspect was the gallery, where members could share their photos by uploading or through mail. The community proved to be a big success by teaching Hallmark about Consumers