By Micky Baca

Web 2.0 is changing the way EMC does business.

What if the people who use EMC products on a regular basis could talk directly to those who build them, without any filters, friction, or waiting? Or if certified EMC Proven Professionals could have ongoing exchanges about their training and career choices within a community of like-minded individuals from around the world?

Those are just the kind of conversations that are taking place on the newly-launched EMC Community Network (ECN), an evolving collection of online communities that leverages social media to foster a new level of collaboration among EMC stakeholders. ECN links EMC, its customers, its partners, and potentially anyone who has a business relationship with the company around the globe 24/7.

Chuck Hollis, EMC vice president and Global Marketing CTO, who sponsored the idea, says it is only the beginning of a revolutionary shift in how EMC—and the world—does business.

First EMC honed its skills within the company, using Web 2.0 technology for an internal online collaboration platform. Learning 2.0 communication skills and behavior and getting good at community-building internally were key steps toward creating the ECN, Hollis says.

When it came to extending the network outside, the company turned to a group of EMC employees who had operated an external online community for developers for several years. Headed by Randy Ziegler, director of the EMC Community Network (ECN), the team took on the challenge of building a much broader external online community network. It developed a repeatable, organized methodology, and in the past two quarters, a dozen communities have emerged on ECN, with the potential for many more.

ECN includes four main community groupings. Connect links user groups, advisory forums, and professional networks. Labs enables members to collaborate and gain early access to new EMC products and technology. The Partner Network joins partners with EMC and makes doing business together more efficient. And the original EMC Developer Network continues.

The benefits to stakeholders and EMC are substantial. Ziegler points to the feedback EMC gained in its development of a new product called CenterStage, its next-generation, knowledge-worker product designed for use with EMC Documentum. Community members got to demo it online, offer comments while it was still in Beta testing phase, and engage with the product team. For the first time, EMC was able to involve a large number of customers in direct product development, making the process more efficient and more receptive to customer requirements.

“We get it, we see the value, and we want to do more,” says Ziegler. And just as important, ECN members see the value too. They have the chance to serve as virtual advisors, Ziegler points out, providing EMC with valuable perspectives, feedback, and opinions in an online forum. They are accelerating their business and taking an active role in maximizing the investment their organizations already have made in EMC solutions.

Ziegler describes ECN as “nothing short of a movement here within EMC that’s growing by the day.” More and more EMC personnel are learning how to engage customers and partners in a new way to solve business problems. “There’s an extremely valuable dialogue emerging that allows us to deepen our relationship with our ecosystem of partners and customers,” he says.

Customers and partners, in turn, get an unfiltered opportunity to speak directly with engineers designing, building, and supporting EMC products and services. They can suggest what they want to see for future technology, Ziegler says. In turn, he says, “Members find it’s valuable to network among themselves and enjoy discussing common challenges and sharing solutions.”

Participation in ECN takes place 24 hours a day, unconstrained by anyone’s physical location, and at the convenience of its members.

The network is also cost effective. Jonathan Siegal, EMC director of RMSG Product Marketing, says establishing an ECN community centered on EMC ControlCenter, EMC’s storage management software, has proven invaluable. “Given the current economy, it has never been more important to stay connected with our customers,” he says. “It has also never been more difficult with budget cuts. The ControlCenter Online User Community provides immediate access to customers worldwide at virtually no cost.”

An EMC ControlCenter customer from a leading Canadian financial services provider strongly attests to the value of staying connected. He states, “The ability to interact directly with the people who make decisions on the future direction of ControlCenter is invaluable. This is the kind of thing every company should do. I rely on EMC ControlCenter as an integral part of my day-to-day work, and anything I can influence to help myself is time well spent!”

The way Hollis sees it, there’s “no turning back” on leveraging communities. “This is exciting, this is about people, this is about passion, and it changes work into fun,” he says.