Infosys is a successful software company with more than 200,000 employees. Social media are integral to its strategy and communications approach. The company uses social media to engage younger...

Infosys is a successful software company with more than 200,000 employees. Social media are integral to its strategy and communications approach. The company uses social media to engage younger employees in these processes and to empower them. In order to do this, the company created STRAP Surround as a social platform to engage employees and allow executives to teach. It contains blogs, discussion forums, an in-house version of YouTube for video sharing, and a range of physical activities and games. The system has provided a mountain of data on its workforce for executives to process. Here is one example. Employees participated in a series of live events related to a strategy execution topic. These events resulted in tens of thousands of ideas shared via social media. Through these events, management discovered some new things about the effectiveness of different communications media. For example, social media was most effective for structured questions, such as those asking about technologies for future growth, digital consumer behavior, and health care. Moderators made sure to thank participants and the information gathered was passed along to managers. Some employees who provided particularly useful answers were chosen to become team members. 1. Do you think social media are an effective way to engage employees who are in large organizations? Why or why not? 2. Do you think social media would work well in smaller companies? Why or why not? 3. Do you think that using social media changes the corporate culture and the way in which teams communicate for the better or worse? Explain your answer.