View Courtney Hunt's profileThis SMinOrgs News Digest includes pieces on marketing and branding, free speech rights, application challenges, government 2.0 and enterprise 2.0.
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Title: Gap Logo Reversal a Sign of Social Network Power
Source: Montreal Gazette
Author: Misty Harris
Lead Paragraph: It took Gap a week to declare its new logo a bust, likely making it the first large-scale corporate revamp with a shelf life shorter than milk. In case you missed it -- and if you blinked, you probably did -- the clothing retailer recently replaced its iconic blue logo with a more contemporary emblem that set the Gap name in bold Helvetica against a white canvas, with a small blue square in the upper-right corner. Online reaction was swift and sadistic, ultimately leading Gap to scrap the redesign just seven days after its introduction.
Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs
This piece was shared by Ron Thomas. I actually see this as a sign of leadership failure, on several counts. First, the folks responsible for this redesign could have involved the Gap community in the effort before the final logo was introduced. Secondly, as noted in the piece, they could have engaged with the critics and detractors after the launch, once the negative feedback started rolling in. And finally, they should not have been so quick to cave in and eliminate the new logo. This is a great cautionary tale for any individual or organization considering significant changes in the Digital Era: don’t assume 1.0 approaches will continue to work indefinitely in a 2.0 world.
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Title: Social Media, the First Amendment, and Citizens
Source: Center for Public Policy and Administration
Author: Megan Crowley, CPPA
Lead Paragraph: Now that local governments have embraced social media as a means to generate citizen engagement, there are some associated legal issues that should be addressed. One issue is how social media relates to constitutional freedom of speech.
Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs
This piece was shared by Greg Jensen. It’s a nice complement to the article about Brentwood, TN’s social media policy that was included in the recent S.M.A.R.T. News Digest entitled “Social Media and the Public Sector I.” It provides some good examples of how public communities can allow for two-way communication with their stakeholders while also managing the risks that opening up the conversation can create.
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Title: Cisco CEO Chambers' Key Risk: Running a Company on Social Networking
Source: ZDNet
Author: Larry Digman
Lead Paragraph: Cisco CEO John Chambers said the company’s two biggest risks are its bet that video will become critical to networks and trying to run his company on social networking.
Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs
This article was shared by Bruce Kneuer. I have to admit it frustrated me a bit. I wanted to hear more about the challenges Cisco is facing with creating a culture of collaboration, Chambers' ideas about how "more spending needs to support the 'cultural change of technology,'” and how "Cisco will grow employee productivity 10 percent a year over the next decade due to cloud computing, networking and collaboration." There is so much that so many can learn from them...
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Title: Hey Washington Post — It’s Called Social Media
Source: Matthew Ingram
Author: GigaOM
Lead Paragraph: It’s been awhile since we had a blow-up among traditional media entities about using Twitter and other social media, but now the Washington Post has provided yet another compelling example of how newspapers in particular aren’t really getting the whole “social” aspect of the social-media phenomenon. This was easy to forgive a year or two ago, when Twitter was relatively new, and social media was unfamiliar territory, but it’s really hard to cut the Washington Post or its brethren much slack at this point. Now it almost seems like they don’t want to get it.
Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs
This piece was shared by Greg Jensen. I don’t think these issues are unique to media organizations – in fact, the resistance to engage in dialogue is probably much greater in other types of firms. We are still in the early days of social media adoption, and we’re still figuring out where the lines are drawn and how communication should be managed. The legal, brand, and risk management issues are not trivial, especially given that the consequences of missteps can be much greater in the Digital Era than ever before. The conservatism is somewhat understandable when you have experienced journalists like the CNN reporter and the Post’s sports writer who engaged in a Twitter “hoax” shooting themselves in the foot – imagine what a rookie might do!
That said, I agree with the criticism that the Post should have some means for engaging in dialogue with their readers. Given its limitations (and risks) I would say Twitter is NOT the channel for doing that. My recommendation would be that they determine a set of rules for engaging in dialogue and consistently enforce them. For example, a journalist may provide clarifying responses and correct factual misrepresentations in the comments section for a specific article for up to seven days. And perhaps he/she could also enter into debate when appropriate. Each individual journalist could decide how to manage his/her activity, but they should be TRAINED to know the most appropriate ways to respond and engage. That seems to be another important element that's been overlooked by the Post…
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Title: Why Twitter Is a Big Win for Small Businesses
Source: Mashable.com
Author: Erica Swallow
Lead Paragraph: Twitter is used by businesses of all shapes and sizes for customer service, lead generation, public relations, marketing, crowdsourcing, sales and sharing up-to-date information. Successes aren’t universal, though. Many businesses find it difficult to overcome the learning curve, learn the Twitter lingo, gain a following and sustain interesting conversation while providing value for followers.
Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs
This article was shared by Catherine DiGennaro. I think the experiences of these three small businesses are illustrative for individuals and larger organizations as well. Though the details may vary, the underlying principles for leveraging Twitter are fundamentally the same - be strategic and authentic, engage with and attend to your followers, recognize the learning curve is steepest in the beginning but you never stop learning...
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Title: Whose Ethics Apply in Social Media?
Source: The Net-Savvy Executive
Author: Nathan Gilliatt
Lead Paragraph: Today's Wall Street Journal had Twitter abuzz about social media monitoring and privacy in closed communities ('Scrapers' Dig Deep for Data on Web). Specifically, a health discussion board and a social media analysis vendor using individual accounts to access personally identifiable health information. It's obviously an ethical question, but whose ethics apply? As far as I can tell? Nobody's (yet).
Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs
This post initiates an important discussion we all need to engage in, regardless of how we may choose to use social media. The WSJ referenced in the article is worth reading as well. I’ve also included this article in my follow-up post on social screening. What are your thoughts on the ethical standards we should use when deailing with digital data?
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Title: Digital Policy Council Tracks An Open Government Movement Around The Globe
Source: PRWeb
Author: n/a
Lead Paragraph: The Digital Policy Council (DPC), an international, non-partisan "think tank" on 21st Century Governance, has released updated rankings on the use of social media by heads of state. The DPC is the research and public advocacy arm of Digital Daya ('digital influence'), a new generation strategic consultancy that empowers leaders in the public sectors to leverage the new media of the Internet to communicate their message, build public influence, and execute high-impact programs to reshape governance and public policy.
Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs
The study’s results are interesting, but the long-term commitment to social media implied by the creation of the DPC is even more fascinating.
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Title: The Inextricable Link Between Social Media and Enterprise 2.0
Source: The Community Roundtable
Author: Rachel Happe
Lead Paragraph: Social media and enterprise 2.0 are largely thought of separately these days, in large part because social media primarily affects communications and relationships with constituent groups outside of the organization and enterprise 2.0 addresses collaboration and innovation behind the firewall. In reality, organizations will find that by doing one they must address the other. Why? Social technologies significantly reduce the cost of content creation, distribution and discovery, thereby significantly increasing the speed of information and value transfer. If implemented on one side of the corporate firewall but not the other, it creates an imbalance that grows quickly, increasing tension and strain felt in other parts of the organization.
Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs
I disagree with the characterization that “social media primarily affects communications and relationships with constituent groups outside of the organization.” This characterization unfortunately reinforces the too-common confusion of a set of technologies with their application. As I discuss in Parts 1 and 2 of the Social Media Primer (http://www.sminorgs.net/social-media-primer.html), digital social media can be leveraged externally, internally, and on the boundary between organizations. It’s not the exclusive province of a single domain.
That said, I appreciate the idea that organizations should consider the consistency with which they’re leveraging these technologies in different applications. Just as it’s important to think about the synchronicity between internal and external applications, it’s also important to think about the synchronicity of applications within an organization. For example, an organization that leverages the new technologies to support its knowledge management efforts but doesn’t consider their impact on their human capital management practices could also create obstacles and frustrations for its employees.
Strategic leadership is key to maximizing the effectiveness of the implementation of social media in organizations.
I just remembered that we have a great video on our YouTube channel of an interview with John Chambers talking about their move from "command & control" and "collaboration & teamwork." Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/user/SMandHR?feature=mhum#p/f/19/9WX7BNnYTf8
Posted by: Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD | October 31, 2010 at 07:57 PM