Next Practices

I enjoy a semi-retired life in my hometown of Winchester, Kentucky where I am currently writing a Christian daily devotional book due to be published in 2022. I love being here with my wife (Linda), dog (Callie), parents, extended family, old friends, and wonderful church, Central Baptist Church.

Formerly, I was an online community professional who spent most of my experience as a strategist and community manager for Humana, a Fortune 100 company headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. I enjoyed being the community manager for our enterprise social network (ESN) called “Buzz” that was launched in 2010 on the Socialcast platform until my departure from the company in late 2020 having successfully migrated Buzz to the Microsoft Yammer platform in mid-2019. I also co-created our employee advocacy program with my colleague Jason Spencer. I’ve enjoyed having a hand in other internal and external online communities established to serve the needs of various audiences. It was a pleasure to work at Humana from 2003-2020.

In September 2013 I founded the weekly Twitter chat about enterprise social networking – #ESNchat. That chat continued regularly until October 2021. I am thankful for a variety of co-hosts who drove the discussions through the years that helped hundreds of professionals improve their communities and themselves. As an avid social media/social learning enthusiast and lifelong learner, I am particularly interested in how social technology and online communities are used to meet the needs and solve problems of individuals and groups both inside and outside the company.  As a community manager, I lived and breathed the communities for which I gratefully had responsibility.

Sadly, I am now dismayed by the toxicity of much of social media as it has devolved into cesspools of anger and hate. Strong communities of people supporting one another are a blessing. Toxic social media platforms (like Facebook and Twitter) do more harm than good now, and the world would be a better place without them.

You are welcome to:

• request a connection on LinkedIn
• email me
• follow me on Twitter
• contact me to arrange a speaking engagement. The words are free. I charge to arrange and deliver them. 😊

Related to my role as the community manager for Buzz, I am proud that the community grew from its May 2010 beginning to over 85,000 users with over 1,100 special interest groups and more than 8,000 posts per week, gaining broad support from all levels of the company.  A chronological history of related publications, speaking engagements, interviews, awards and opportunities related to the Buzz success story, efforts to move forward the field of enterprise social networking, and accomplishments about our employee advocacy program are listed below:

• December, 2010 – on a panel at the Net:Work 2010 Conference in San Francisco with Tim Young, President of Socialcast, interviewed by Stowe Boyd on the subject of “Integrating Social Collaboration Into the Workflow.”  Here is the article and 17-minute video;
• December, 2011 – interviewed for the Altimeter Group report “Making the Business Case for Enterprise Social Networks”;
• Dec. 2011 – Adam Newbold, a Humana colleague, wrote an article for ReadWrite.com, “How Humana Used the Socialcast API for Rapid Web Dev”; (while the article is about the community I manage, all development work mentioned in the article was done by Adam and his colleagues);
• March, 2012 – led a private webinar for other global community managers whose companies use Socialcast as their platform on the topic of custom reporting with Socialcast;
• April, 2012 – interviewed by Forrester for the white paper “Social Business: Delivering Critical Business Value“;
• May, 2012 – interviewed by Menno Lanting for book on social collaboration in enterprises;
• June, 2012 – surveyed by Gartner in research related to their Magic Quadrant on Social Software in the Workplace;
• August, 2012 – presented at VMworld 2012 in San Francisco the session “Using Socialcast to Build a Successful Internal Social Collaboration Community”;
• August, 2012 – member of panel who presented at VMworld 2012 in San Francisco the session “Gain Competitive Advantage with Enterprise Social”;
• September, 2012 – interviewed for the TechTarget.com article “Enterprise social networks have endless possibilities despite hurdles”;
• October, 2012 – IDC released a report I was interviewed for earlier in the year, “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Social Software 2012 Vendor Analysis“; related article here;
• November, 2012 – Buzz case study published by Socialcast;
• November, 2012 – Buzz included in Socialcast customer infographic;
• November, 2012 – interviewed by Ragan Communications for article on enterprise social software;
• November, 2012 – interviewed by Gartner for a report on enterprise social software;
• May, 2013 – interviewed for article in Citeworld.com, “How Humana Got 26,000 Employees to Use Its Internal Social Network“;
• May, 2013 – interviewed by Frost & Sullivan regarding Buzz and enterprise social networks;
• June, 2013 – Buzz video included in Socialcast blog post, “How to Raise Enterprise Social Adoption Rates“;
• June, 2013 – surveyed by Gartner in research related to their Magic Quadrant on Social Software in the Workplace;
• June, 2013 – post from this blog, “Quit Holding Social Media to a Different Standard,” featured in the private monthly newsletter of The Community Roundtable;
• June, 2013 – Citeworld.com article mentioned above from May, 2013 referenced in subsequent article along with a personal mention, “Here’s Why Your Social Business Project Just Tanked“;
• June, 2013 – positive mention of Buzz as a collaborative tool in the Talent Management article about Humana’s Chief Human Resource Officer Tim Huval’s work;
• June, 2013 – Humana included as a major user of Socialcast in “10 Enterprise Networks to Improve Company Communication“;
• July, 2013 – interviewed by Forrester for the Enterprise Social Platform Wave to be published later in 2013;
• September, 2013 – started the weekly Twitter chat #ESNchat;
• September, 2013 – nice mention by Carrie Young of TalkSocialToMe.com in a blog post published following the Sept. 12, 2013 #ESNchat;
• September, 2013 – featured guest on #cmgrhangout discussing enterprise social networks; video and tweet archive here;
• September, 2013 – Buzz awarded the BrandonHall Excellence Award for Best use of Social/Collaborative Learning;
• September, 2013 – seven Buzz videos posted on YouTube:
  •  “Buzz Overview”  http://youtu.be/eCKLKHibTKU
    
  •  “Buzz IT Perspectives”   http://youtu.be/7R_FgkrwQM
    
  •  “I Buzz”  http://youtu.be/Crw-RMg6yNo
  •  “Building Community with Buzz”   http://youtu.be/jzBbdV_uE9c
  •  “The Business Benefits of Buzz”   http://youtu.be/YJY243UF6B8
  •  “If We Didn’t Have Buzz”  http://youtu.be/0zzyjHe8zu0
  •  “Buzz Community Manager Jeff Ross”  http://youtu.be/1U2jSJzKN9Y
• October, 2013 – Buzz history & milestones infographic published;
• November, 2013 – The Community Roundtable positively mentions #ESNchat in a blog post follow-up to a recent chat;
• November, 2013 – Article published by Simply-Communicate.com: “Buzzing in Healthcare: Humana’s ESN Story“;
• January, 2014 – Wrote blog post on “The Evolution of Enterprise Social Networks” for Community Manager Appreciation Day;
• January, 2014 – Moderated panel discussion on “The Evolution of Enterprise Social Networks” for Community Manager Appreciation Day;
• February, 2014 – Published an article on SocialMediaExplorer.com: “So You’re Thinking About Starting an Online Community“;
• March, 2014 – Featured on a community manager profile from The Community Roundtable;
• April, 2014 – Humana’s Buzz presented as one of three case studies of successful enterprise social networks in a presentation given by Socialcast and Change Agents Worldwide;
• April, 2014 – Co-led a webinar for VMware/Socialcast on Connecting Executives and Employees Through Socialcast Town Halls;
• May, 2014 – Presented at the J. Boye Web and Intranet Conference on “Building a Successful Enterprise Social Network“;
• May, 2014 – Positive mention in the article “Internal social networks: Enjoy the benefits while staying ahead of the legal risks“;
• June, 2014 – Interviewed for article “Twitter Chats 101: How to use Twitter chats to connect with your community“;
• August, 2014 – Featured on a video episode of Social Business Engine and related article “Why Social Networking is Healthy in the Enterprise“;
• August, 2014 – Interviewed and referenced in Temkin Group report “Social Employee Engagement“;
• September, 2014 – Article: “The Buzz at Humana“;
• October, 2014 – Handed over weekly hosting of #ESNchat to The Community Roundtable;
• December, 2014 – Nice “Thank It Forward” post from Shannon Abram of The Community Roundtable;
• December, 2014 – Interviewed by Altimeter Group for report: “Strengthening Employee Relationships in the Digital Era“;
• February, 2015 – Included and quoted in The Community Manager Handbook by The Community Roundtable as one of 21 “community superheroes”;
• March, 2015 – Humana’s use of Buzz by CEO Bruce Broussard positively referenced as an example of using an enterprise social network in Charlene Li’s book The Engaged Leader;
• April, 2015 – Led a webinar for Ragan Communications on “Building a Social Network to Boost Productivity and Create Engagement“;
• May, 2015 – Featured in an article on kmworld.com: “Getting the Most Out of Enterprise Social Networks“;
• June, 2015 – Buzz use by Humana’s CEO Bruce Broussard included in article by Charlene Li on overcoming leader objections to social media;
• June, 2015 – Dynamic Signal blogs about Humana’s successful launch of an employee advocacy program;
• July, 2015 – Published post on Socialcast’s blog on how leaders can use enterprise social networks to engage with employees;
• August, 2015 – Buzz wins the PR Daily Award for Best Executive Communications;
• September, 2015 – Socialcast begins publishing on their blog my 12-part LinkedIn series on tips for building a successful ESN;
• September, 2015 – Updated Buzz Success Milestone Infographic published
• September, 2015 – Jeff speaks at the monthly meeting of the Louisville chapter of International Association of Business Communicators on “12 Tips for Building a Successful Enterprise Social Network”;
• October, 2015 – Jeff cited and quoted in article from thenetworked.org as an expert practitioner of Socialcast software for enterprise social networking;
• October, 2015 – Mentioned in this article by simply-communicate.com on “Driving Dynamic Employee Advocacy“;
• November, 2015 – Interviewed by The Community Roundtable for this podcast on Conversations with Community Managers;
• January, 2016 – a couple of nice mentions in this article “10 Observations – Social Media and Marketing in 2016“;
• January, 2016 – quoted in the article “Be not afraid, believe in ESNs“;
• January, 2016 – interviewed for written and video case study of Humana’s Associate Advocacy Program;
• January, 2016 – nice mention in this article on business2community.com about Buzz;
• February, 2016 – named as a Community Roundtable Network Superhero for the month;
• April, 2016 – Added to Stan Garfield‘s list of the Top 200 Knowledge Management Thought Leaders;
• June, 2016 – Humana’s employee advocacy program won the PR Daily award for Best use of Digital and Social Media for Healthcare;
• June, 2016 – Humana’s Buzz won the PR Daily award for Best Use of Digital and Social Media for Internal Communications;
• June, 2016 – Identified as an ESN expert to learn from at the Intranets 2016 Conference in Sydney, Australia;
• July, 2016 – Interviewed by MIT professor for coming textbook on Social Media Management;
• August, 2016 – Article published by Jive Software about the various Jive communities we use at Humana;
• November, 2016 – Recipient of The Community Roundtable’s Pack Leader Award which has the description: “You rally members around a good cause. When you speak, people listen, but you also know a good leader listens and empowers a group. You are generous with your knowledge.”
• August, 2017 – The launch of ESNchat included in a blog post and infographic by Jim Storer of the Community Roundtable on the subject of 30+ years of online community resources;
• September, 2017 – Article “Long-Term Value & Your ESN: Finding the Magic and Making it Stick” published by Talk Social To Me about my enterprise social networking work at Humana
• November, 2018 – The Humana Advocates employee advocacy program designed and launched in 2015 by Jeff Ross and Jason Spencer won Dynamic Signal’s award for Best Employee Communication and Engagement Program.
• September, 2019 – Jeff received the first-ever Outstanding Community Achievement Award from The Community Roundtable at the Connect 2019 Conference. This award recognizes someone who has dedicated much of their time and effort to successfully managing communities, furthering the industry, and helping their peers through sharing experiences, knowledge, and general support.
• September, 2019 – Humana’s Buzz community won the Outstanding Community Change Agent Award for internal communities from The Community Roundtable at the Connect 2019 Conference. This award recognizes a community program or initiative that supports cultural transformation at their organization.
• June, 2020 – Video interview by SWOOP Analytics discussing my company’s use of SWOOP for Microsoft Teams and Yammer.
• November, 2020 – Cited by SWOOP Analytics as a global community expert with several of our enterprise social network communities in the top 1% of nearly 9,000 communities analyzed worldwide in SWOOP’s annual Yammer Benchmarking Report – 2020.

I am thankful to many wonderful colleagues and excellent business partners for helping to make all of the above possible.  You made my work a joy!

Peace.