I left SWOOP Chat New York with a clear focus on why we, in the world of the Enterprise Social Networks, do what we do.

**UNICEF’s Paola Storchi sharing her story of how UNICEF grew Yammer engagement by 560% over two years.**

We do it to get clean drinking water to the world’s most vulnerable children, those living in communities with no sewerage or septic facilities who are at grave risk of disease.

We do it so those affected by the deadliest attack on Jews in the United States have a place to come together to share vital information to support their communities and to give them a place to heal.

Ultimately, we do it to give whomever we’re aiming to serve, whether it’s a customer, a community, a vulnerable child, the best and most efficient service while providing them, and those helping them, with the correct and the best information.

**Rabbi Leora Kaye from the Union for Reform Judaism speaking about “The Tent” external Yammer network which connects 12,000 users across 900 congregations.**

These were some of the stories that were shared at SWOOP Chat NYC last week.

As our speakers shared their stories, we all joined in the discussion to learn how these experiences can help our own networks, and share ideas of what has and hasn’t worked. It gave us focus on why we use Enterprise Social Networks – to make our work better.

We learned how UNICEF is using online communities to connect people to each other and to the knowledge they need to deliver the greatest results for children, how the Union for Reform Judaism, which oversees 900 Jewish congregations across North America, uses Yammer to connect them all and how it became a vital resource for communication and healing when a gunman killed 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in late October.

**Ron Perazza from Wiley sharing how the global publisher uses Yammer to get work done.**

We heard from global publishing company Wiley, which so generously hosted SWOOP Chat in its impressive offices on the banks of the Hudson River, and how they encourage social groups on Yammer, with the purpose; “Come for the cats, stay for the work.”

Global professional real estate services company RealFoundations, which has been recognised as one of the world’s best and most mature Yammer networks for the past two years in SWOOP’s annual global benchmarking, shared how it does its day to day work in Yammer and Microsoft Teams, how it uses the SWOOP Personas in twice-yearly employee reviews and provided practical examples of how to direct staff where to work when.

At the opposite end of the scale, we heard how global medical technology company BD relaunched Yammer to its 65,000 employees six months ago and the journey that’s taken so far.

**RealFoundations’ Naomi Souza says Yammer and Microsoft Teams is where her colleagues do their day to day work.**

We had representatives from some of the world’s biggest companies at SWOOP Chat New York, including Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo and Frito-Lay, energy giant Chevron, global beauty company Coty whose brands include Bourjois, Clairol, CoverGirl, Max Factor and many more, luxury hotels group Leading Quality, UNICEF, Wiley, BD and more.

The discussion was open and honest. We shared the difficulties we’ve encountered, the successes we’ve gained and the ideas we think might work for someone else. Talk included different ways organisations use SWOOP to get the most out of their networks and how tools like SWOOP’s benchmarking, and seeing your SWOOP Persona, can sometimes have the most impact on individuals. We discussed ways to use SWOOP to get your senior leaders on the network, because once they’re on the network, their staff will follow.

**Sien Avalos from BD speaking about the ups and downs of the Yammer journey.**

After hearing from our customers, we moved to a hands-on workshop where we worked in teams to solve a “sticky problem” we’ve encountered in our Workplace or Yammer communities.

Workplace Performance Strategist Mark Britz and SWOOP’s Director of Customer Success, North America, James Tyer, hosted a social learning session, before we ended the day with a video call from SWOOP CEO Cai Kjaer who announced a new ‘nudge’ capability in SWOOP that can prompt people to become better users. Stay tuned for more details.

It wasn’t all hard work. Our day was focused around discussion, story-telling and sharing ideas and experiences.

Very importantly, we were treated to an early Christmas lunch, great food and conversation and fantastic collaboration.

**Working together to solve a “sticky problem”.**

James and I would like to thank all our speakers at SWOOP Chat NYC – Paola Storchi from UNICEF, Naomi Souza from RealFoundations, Rabbi Leora Kaye from the URJ, Ron Perazza from Wiley and Sien Avalos from BD.

At drinks after SWOOP Chat, discussion turned to ideas for next year’s SWOOP Chat with Dallas, Texas leading the charge as the next location. We’d love to you join us there!