How to Use Stories in Viva Engage for Business

August 2022

Recently Microsoft announced the rebranding of Yammer (Microsoft’s Enterprise Social Network) to Viva Engage and I wrote my thoughts about this in my blog post Yammer & Viva Engage: Same? Same?

Yammer & Viva Engage: Same? Same?

The Stand Out New Features are Storyline and Stories

Although early days yet, two of the stand out features in this platform are Storyline and Stories.

The terms may be confusing but in the past, Yammer had a function where people could write their own posts without it attaching to a specific community. It was a space where people could reflect, sense make, work and think out loud – a blogging space to show what they were working on, what they were learning and making visible their thinking.

Unfortunately and short sightedly Microsoft took this function away without realising that they were also removing a place for individuals to reflect and sense making.

If there was ever a time for people to do this at work, it’s now.

(I remember working for National Australia Bank many years ago, where one of the leadership team, Simon Terry, used this function to share his thoughts and reflections. I eagerly read his posts as they provided insight into organisational opportunities and challenges and made leaders more personal and approachable).

Luckily Microsoft has introduced this function again and it’s calling it Storyline.

However, it’s also introducing a short video function called Stories. If you ever used any social media site like Facebook, you’d see the short videos sit above the feed where people can share short portrait style videos.

What’s So Special About Stories?

I have been writing and sharing blog posts and videos about how to use the Stories feature for Business since 2017 ever since these features appeared on social media.

At the time, Snapchat was the first platform to do this before Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn (this one died off) and now TikTok. Experimenting with the Snapchat Stories feature made some light bulbs get off in my head and over the next four years of my working life, I used the Stories feature to capture a visual portfolio of my entire work history and projects.

That’s over 400 videos of my work projects, the conferences and training events I attended, interviews with colleagues, experiments with different Microsoft applications, reflections about work related topics and themes.

Now, if someone says to me, “What do you know about XYZ?” Well, I can show them the videos of HOW and WHAT I did on XYZ.

(It’s great for building a visual portfolio of your work for your career development – and in fact, I have presented many times over the years, to university students and graduates on how to start using social media stories in ways that helps them build their career).

Here’s an example of some of my previous stories:

This Week’s Snap Stories of Personal Learning Week of 13 November 2017

Yeah But What Happened Then?

The thing is, back then, in pre-COVID days, the Stories feature was very new. I was certainly considered kooky and weird for using Stories and I lost count of people telling me it was frivolous, only for young people, that the use of portrait video went against good video design when it must be landscape video, ephemeral content is irrelevant and illogical, and that Stories simply has no place in business.

(To make a case in point, I presented at a conference about How to Use Stories for Business and only 2 people came to my session until the conference organisers were so embarrassed at the turnout they went around drumming up people to come to my session. Oh look I’ve got a video of that too….here’s what happened on that day….because you guessed it, I made a Story on that day!

Certainly organisations back then didn’t have a similar function that would allow people to capture and record stories because organisational systems and capturing and stories videos were cumbersome. Issues like privacy, sensitivity and confidentiality of information was critical and also the fact that taking videos in some organisational settings could be just plain dangerous also.

As a result, (in my experience), back then, the Stories feature was only used by the Marketing or Corporate Communications team to showcase the organisation to the public. For example, NASA comes to mind where they would run Stories and interview astronauts or get behind-the-scenes tours.

That’s when the penny dropped for me on the power of Stories for Business Contexts: where workers could show and talk about their work, show us behind the scenes into their spaces and give us a glimpse into other areas of the organisation.

Stories allowed exactly that – stories to surface, to be made visible, to interact and engage – and see our place in the organisation.

I then started to dabble more and over time, built up different ways to use the Stories feature for business contexts and share these out to others through different conferences and workshops (mainly to Marketing, Corporate Communications or Learning and Development teams – as the Stories feature was also a great way to incorporate into Employee Development programs). However, my challenge back then was one of credibility and the fact that certain teams, simply didn’t allow (or want) their teams to share stories in this manner.

I wonder however, if this will now change matters because the Stories feature is sitting inside Viva Engage – or whether it will be restricted or turned off.

Before organisations turn this off without exploring its full potential, here’s some ideas of how Stories can be used for Business Contexts and also incorporated as part of the Employee Experience. I’d urge organisations to at least trial out the Stories feature but also provide some educational context around HOW it may be used in ways that BRINGS VALUE to the organisation.

Here’s just some ideas I shared on How to Use Stories:

Employee Broadcasts

Employees can have their own Story channel to share their own thoughts, reflections and ideas in their own way that showcases their unique talents and diverse perspectives.

You may be pleasantly surprised to learn that they have creative skills otherwise unexplored, untapped or unacknowledged in their current role.

A Visual Dairy

Take some video of what you’re working on during the day and various intervals and publish these.

You may like to add some additional context in Storylines at the same time. Taking video in-situ means that we get a timeline of the work that you’re doing – so it means we get to see the process and the steps that you do – and why you do them in that particular way.

Never underestimate the power of your knowledge and experience; and why you do something in your own unique way. Too often organisations think that the FINAL PRODUCT is the focus. It’s not.

It’s the work in-between, in the messy middle, that is the gold.

A Live Story at Your Company Event

At your next company event, workshop or conference, take a story of it.

For example you can capture the key notes that presenters shared and offer your own ‘value’ on it. That is, what did you think about what they talked about? How can it be applied in your work?

You can also share what they offered to others by way of resources, references, materials and links.

Don’t just capture video without context – add YOUR context because it demonstrates that you’re sharing your own insights to what is presented.

The trick is that when sharing your story, make it YOUR story.

For Q&A Session

Use Stories as a way to provide visual and engaging feedback. Encourage employees to ask questions to senior leaders and subject matter experts as part of a Q&A session and get them to share their answers through video.

People across your company can ask questions and have their answers responded to by others.

Why not have a weekly Q&A session as part of your team or departments communications at the same time each week?

Use Stories to engage, ask questions – and answer questions asked of you openly.

Interview Employees at Their Work

Use Stories to interview employees at their place of work and to explain their roles and responsibilities to the company. It’s a great way to provide a visual representation of the different roles everyone plays.

You can also use it as part of Onboarding programs to introduce people to others in their own organisation or use Stories to acknowledge the great work that people do in your organisation.

For individuals, you can also create Stories where you answer the questions that others have of you. For example, if I was to use Stories in my own role as the Community Manager at Rapid Circle, I would start by answering the questions that people ALWAYS come to me for and do them as a Stories series:

What’s a community and how is it different to a team?
What do I do as a Community Manager?
Why can’t we just use Teams and not Yammer?
How can I build a community in Yammer?
What value do communities have in an organisation?

Stories allow you to have an individual voice and expression of your own work – and to share this voice in a video format to your peers. If you’re offering value, people will follow you.

Take Over Each Other’s Accounts

This was an interesting way I saw the Stories feature being used by some organisational departments. They would take over each other’s accounts on a particular day such as ‘Takeover Thursday’.

For example, two departments such as the Human Resources Department and the Engineering Department take the stories for each other. It means that an engineer could be roaming around and asking questions of the HR staff and vice versa. Watching these stories was an interesting experiment as it dispelled myths and stereotypes of different departments had of each other and promoted more mutual understanding of the specific and important roles they play in their own way. It was similar to watching “empathy in action” and inspired new collaborations across teams.

Stories build empathy because people can see, hear and understand what you’re sharing.

Behind the Scenes Tour at Work

Does your workplace have intriguing laboratories and work spaces? Why not take viewers on a behind the scenes tour?

Act as a tour guide in your own company to explain the function of the workspace, introduce fellow colleagues and invite people to drop in for a meet-and-greet. These tours allow employees to appreciate the diverse workspaces that can be found in one company.

Work is a combination of distributed places and spaces – showcase these to give a glimpse of the organisation that others may never see.

Provide Context at Your Training Event

Have your employees recently gone through a training program?

Why not have subject matter experts enhance – and balance out the theoretical and practical components of the learning experience by providing real life work based contexts, stories and experiences with their Stories.

Stories from the ‘horses mouth’ provide more credibility and context because they can provide deeper insights with actual examples that are meaningful and relevant.

Practice Your Public Speaking

Are you afraid of public speaking?

Use Stories to practice your presentation and overcome your fear of the camera.

In the past, I would practice all my conference presentations by running them as a Story and seeking feedback. At the same time, I would become more confident on camera.

Stories allow us to express our work articulately and succinctly.

Provide and Seek Feedback

Don’t bother about writing long posts or emails to get some feedback from people who may not respond. Create a short video to share your feedback and share the positive news story of how this person or their work has helped you in your work or helps out the company.

Send Out Reminders for Company Events

Use the Stories feature to send out a quick reminder for any company notices or programs happening on the day. They could be about workplace hazards, employee informations, notices and broadcasts

Subject Matter “StoryStorms”

Is there someone at your workplace who has years of excellent knowledge skills and experiences to share?

Why not get them to create a series of Story Storms where they share their knowledge in parts and have everyone waiting for the next instalment with abated breath.

I have been a part of different subject matter story storms as well as watching many over the years. They are in fact, micro lessons that can be shared. If I was to encourage my colleagues at Rapid Circle to use Stories, I’d say that using Story Storms where some coders can share HOW they’re working on some code; how they created a PowerBI dashboard would be excellent micro lessons for anyone in the organisation to watch and learn.

Subject matter experts can create Story Storms that are educational content that add huge amounts of value in employee learning and development.

Show Your Work In Progress

Share stories of your work every day. Share something that you’re working on or learning about.

Are you building a prototype of a piece of equipment or setting up different experiments in a laboratory? Maybe you’re out on a building site and you’re going to work on a piece of the project that is going to be of interest to viewers (but boring to you, because, hey, that’s what you do every day!)

Never underestimate the level of interest and what you do, and how you do it in your job. People want to know about it – and learn how you go about it. Who knows, they may even offer some advice, insights or ideas that you haven’t thought about.

Share Stories In Daily Themes

You can set up daily themes in your Stories which would attract interest and share value in your organisation such as:

Thank You Tuesday – congratulate or acknowledge the great work of others
Work Out Loud Wednesday – share what you’re currently working on
Thursday Tip – share a tip or resource that helps you in your work
Fun Friday – share a fun story

Final Thoughts

In all honesty, I don’t know how business and organisations will look on Storylines and Stories and what they would make of them. I’m not going to lie that I found selling Stories to business hard going – and at times, felt that my own credibility as a learning and development professional was questioned by others in my field.

However, five years ago, is a long time ago.

Since then, organisations have gone through a massive shift in how work is being done and many people are now more comfortable in the use of these thanks to COVID. Taking video does not present the same stigma as it did in the past however, what is different here is how organisations will approach its use by its employees especially when it comes to what is being shared, the manner in which it is being shared along with the assuredness that the video does not impose on any privacy or confidentiality issues. I don’t doubt that they’ll be people who even mention, “we don’t pay people to sit around and watch videos”.

That’s where I believe that education and role modelling the use of Stories should be considered and where people are encouraged to SHARE AND SHOW VALUE. Those who share such stories that provide this value to the organisation should be acknowledged, encouraged and supported by their managers and organisations.