S.M.A.R.T. Blog

Social Media and Employee Voice: The Current Landscape - A Research Report

Many people have been talking about the impact of social media on employee engagement and employee voice, but for time-constrained organizational leaders and human capital professionals who want to understand the connections, it's virtually impossible to find those conversations, let alone read and make sense of them. A recent report by Silverman Research can help. Commissioned by the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development (CIPD), it synthesizes the relevant literature and discusses its implications. This post provides a summary and links to the full (free) report.

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This is a guest post written by Laura Hillman, Research Manager at Silverman Research.

Many organisations, as part of their efforts to be an employer of choice and provide a better experience for their employees, are committed to enhancing employee engagement. A key aspect of this effort is the annual “employee engagement survey”. But in spite of their good intentions and sincere investments, employee engagement surveys often don’t provide the meaningful insights they claim to. What is advertised is an opportunity to speak up where all opinions are heard, but in reality what is conducted is a tick box exercise that is often tiresome for employees to complete. With the decline in response rates to engagement surveys, getting employees’ views seems more difficult than ever. This is contradictory to the ever increasing online presence people have where thoughts and feelings are shared willingly.

There is a mass of literature demonstrating the link between employee engagement and various organisational benefits. These include a more satisfied, trusting, cohesive and productive workforce. However, where there is an increased prominence of employee engagement, employee voice still remains in the shadows and in many organisations never gets beyond the annual employee survey. Apart from transitioning to the internet and some advances in analytical capabilities, the basic model of employee surveys has broadly stayed the same for the last 50 years. When we consider that social technologies are offering some pioneering ways of eliciting voice, it is a particularly pertinent time to review current thinking in this area and embrace social media platforms in order to encourage advancement and change.

In early 2013, Silverman Research were commissioned by The Chartered Institute for Personnel Development (CIPD) - the world’s largest HR professional body - to write a report reviewing the current literature on social media within the workplace and the impact it is having on employee voice. The idea behind the report was to create a summary of existing literature on the subject and to act as a guide for future research. Using a range of literature materials including journal articles, blogs, discussion forums and books, the most up to date thinking and practices were captured to cover existing ideas on employee voice, uses of social media within organisations, the benefits and barriers of social media and how social media should be embraced to allow for an authentic employee voice.

The report (available for free here) proposes the adoption of an approach that focuses on social media within the workplace, empowering employees to speak up. Companies are encouraged to mirror the use of social media in our everyday lives to cultivate an information sharing and communicative environment where people feel as though they can voice their opinions and really are listened to – something which has not been possible until now.

The report also argues that our conceptualisation of employee voice should not be static, but rather should evolve in line with technological and social developments. In recent years, as a result of the relentless advance of social media, employee voice too, is evolving rapidly. The greatest difference is the shifting patterns of communication, from being one-way or two-way to being multi-directional. This has developed from giving employees a say behind closed doors to enabling them to engage in an open forum. It is hard to ignore and as such, is voice with muscle.

Social technologies allowing new forms of collaboration also lend themselves to collective decision-making. This aggregation is crucial in the evolution of employee voice because it is a necessary condition under which the wisdom of crowds can be harnessed. The result is a new form of collective employee voice that is mobile, organised and intelligent.

To date, much of the conversation within organisations has been about the risks and threats (especially to employers) that may be associated with social media. However, the perils of an open approach to employee voice and the benefits of more traditional closed systems are often overrated. Moreover, there is little organisations can do to stem the rise of social media. This reiterates the point that organisations should be designing their future in employee voice.

We still don’t know which aspects of organisational culture will be most affected and what new advancements will arise to enable an enhanced employee voice. Despite these uncertainties, one thing is for sure; drastic changes are afoot to the way in which employee voice is expressed within organisations.

 

Laura Hillman is a Research Manager at Silverman Research. She has an MSc in Organisational Psychology from Goldsmiths in London and specialises in the application of social technologies to employee research.

For more information please contact: laura.hillman@silvermanresearch.com

 

Custom Google Maps: A Great Digital Engagement Tool

 

One of my favorite features of Google Maps is the ability to create personalized maps that you can save and share. I've used the feature to map out a route (and more) when we took a road trip through the Western United States in 2011, and to develop a daily tourist itinerary for a visit to Dublin, Ireland in the fall of 2012. 

But custom Google maps aren't just useful to individuals. They also have a variety of potential applications for organizations, groups, and communities, which can use them in ways that produce value for both themselves and their individual members/stakeholders.

 

Key Features

Google maps are...

Visual. The popularity of infographics and sites like Pinterest and SlideShare clearly demonstrate how much people appreciate visual displays. Google maps are a great way to show geographically-oriented information in a visual way. Here are some examples:

• We have created a Member Map to illustrate both the geographic diversity and relative distribution of the membership in our LinkedIn group. In a similar vein, non-profit organizations could use them to share chapter information, chambers of commerce could display member businesses, and academic institutions could use them to illustrate where their graduates have ended up (an alumni diaspora if you will).
• ERE.net has a EREjobs map that enables recruiters to "navigate through recent recruiting job openings geographically."
• Craig's List created a housing map that shows properties for sale and rent, as well as sublets and available rooms.
• Google has a 2007 Googleplex map that displays "photos of life at Google Headquarters."
• The America's Highway project produced the America's Highway: Oral Histories of Route 66 map.

 

Customizable: As many of the examples above illustrate, the pins on a custom map can include more than simple text. They can include photos and links to websites as well. You can also change the pin icons themselves and format the text in a variety of ways, and even edit the html.

 

Flexible. Map owners can choose whether to make their maps public or keep them "unlisted." They can also opt to leave the map in its Google location or embed it on their own website (as we have done).

 

Collaborative. Map owners can invite other individuals to develop and edit individual maps.

 

Dynamic. As soon as there's a significant change, most maps can be updated quickly and easily.

 

Engaging. There are many ways to use Google maps to generate interest and dialogue. At the simplest level, people who view the map can rate it or write a comment directly on the map. When the map is embedded in a website, it can also stimulate discussions about the map's contents and/or give people an incentive to take action. Finally, the map and its activity can be shared via social media to regularly invite people to check it out and engage. Here's one of our recent tweets as an example:

Toronto is the seventh urban area to hit 100 members! ow.ly/iaX8v Check out our updated member map!

 

General Development Tips

You can get super-fancy with Google Maps, which involves lots of coding and technical skills. But as Google themselves noted when they introduced the feature in 2007, it doesn't have to be complicated. You can create a fairly simple map manually, using a free service like this one, or by converting data in an spreadsheet to a KML file (we used BatchGeo for this) and then uploading it (if you'd like specific tips on doing that, please email maps@sminorgs.net).

Here are a few specific lessons Assistant Community Manager Sean Pearson and I learned from our recent efforts:

1. Every map has an "owner," who has to have a Gmail account. Rather than having the owner be an individual, it's probably better to create a Gmail account using a corporate identity (i.e., myorg@gmail.com).
2. If you have map collaborators who don't have access to the login credentials for the corporate Gmail account, each of those collaborators will also need a Gmail account.
3. Individual Google maps are limited to 200 pins. If you're going to need more than that, you'll have to collapse pins and/or create multiple maps.
4. Determine how you want to display the list of pins on the left-hand side of the map, focusing on an arrangement that best meets your goals and makes the most sense to a map viewer. Once you've determined that order, make sure the pin list accurately reflects that order, both when the map is created and as you add to it. It's very easy to drag and drop the list items to create the desired order.
5. It's also very simple to embed a custom map on a web page. Google creates the code; the only adjustment you may have to make is to correct the height and width to fit in the space you've allocated.
6. The default url for custom maps is L-O-N-G! Google will also create a short url for you. If you don't plan to embed the map in your own website, use the short url.

If you're experienced with creating custom Google maps and have other tips to suggest, we'd love to hear them. And although we're no experts, we're also happy to try to answer any questions you may have.

Happy mapping!

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

The Social Media ROI Challenge: Are We Making Progress?

This post revisits the social media ROI (return on investment) question, focusing in particular on whether we're making progress in terms of the challenges put forth by organizational leaders and other experienced professionals who have been resisting increased digital engagement. Playing off the ROI acronym, it provides alternatives for interpreting the ROI argument. It then articulates – and counters – seven assumptions on which the resistance arguments are often based. The post concludes with some indications that leaders may be moving away from specious arguments and balancing concerns about ROI with the equally important COI (cost of inaction), and invites others to share their insights and experiences as well.

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A little over a year ago I wrote The Social Media ROI Challenge: What it Really Means (and 7 Related Faulty Assumptions). After kicking off this year with Social and Digital Tech Trends: 9 Take-Aways for YOU and Digital Era Adaptation in 2013: A Long and Winding Road, I thought I would revisit and update my thoughts on the question of social media ROI (which can also be extended to the adoption of other new digital technologies).I welcome the insights of others as to whether and how we're making progress on addressing the important Digital Era issue of new technology adoption by organizations and their leaders.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

 

ROI is Often Code for...

Technological advances continue to outstrip the willingness and ability of many organizational leaders to address the opportunities and challenges they present. When it comes to social technologies in particular, skepticism has been widespread, and often manifests itself in questions about the kind of return on investment (ROI) leveraging these technologies can produce.

These questions seem perfectly rational on the surface, and it appears that leaders who ask them are fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities and acting as good stewards of their organization's limited resources. But looks can be deceiving. All too often the ROI argument has been used as a smokescreen and/or a form of filibuster against moving forward. In my experience, when organizational leaders and other experienced professionals talk about the ROI of social media, they’re not just referring to Return On Investment. ROI, in fact, is often code for: 

• Ridiculous Online Indulgence. In their disdainful dismissals of social media, people still highlight the (over)abundance of vapid and banal social media activity (e.g., people sharing what they had for lunch) and characterize the people who engage in it as shallow and narcissistic, with too much time on their hands.
• Real professionals Only Interact in traditional ways. There is a clear bias among many professionals toward how things have “always” been done. The phone, and in-person exchanges - and even email - are seen as inherently superior to newer forms of digital interaction. More importantly, the different types of exchanges are viewed as mutually exclusive rather than integrated and complementary.
• Resist Out-of-the-box Ideas. In spite of all the media hype surrounding social media and digital technology, people are not particularly quick to adopt – let alone embrace – new ideas and thinking.
• Reserving Our Interest/Investment until we see what others do. For better and worse, most senior professionals tend to follow more than they lead. Though there may be a strong desire to “keep up with the Joneses,” very few people actually want to be the Joneses.
• Risk aversion Over Innovation. Even when they recognize that they probably need to move forward, fear – of the unknown, of failure, of unintended consequences – holds them back. The risks of engagement are always clearer than the risks of inaction.
• Respect Our Idiosyncrasies and Inconsistency. If pressed, leaders and other experienced professionals would have a hard time defending their negative positions on social media and other digital technologies, especially relative to other positions and decisions. But many of them seem to expect others to accept their arguments at face value and not question or challenge them.

 

7 Faulty Assumptions Underlying Resistance

Generally speaking the resistance arguments contain a number of implicit - and often faulty - assumptions, including:  

1. Social media technologies – particularly the public platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube – represent the complete range of digital technologies available today. 

• Today’s digital capabilities are far greater than most people realize – and they’re expanding every day.
• People need to think beyond software, to hardware and networks and analytics too (i.e., SMAC - social, mobile,analytics, cloud).
• When it comes to software in particular, they need to think beyond specific platforms to the tools and technologies that comprise them.

2. Organizational leaders know the ROI of current practices for marketing, branding, selling, etc. - and it's good. 

• The links between many current practices, such as advertisements and trade shows, is difficult, if not impossible, to measure.
• The costs of traditional approaches can be much higher than comparable digital efforts.

3. Current communication and collaboration practices are efficient and effective and cannot be improved on by leveraging new digital technologies.

• The limitations, challenges, and frustrations of email are well-known.
• Many in-person meetings are considered an avoidable waste of time.

4. It's appropriate to hold new practices - particularly new digital technologies - to higher standards than existing practices.

• People need to be willing and able to critically examine current approaches. There should be no sacred cows.
• The relative value and utility of different approaches should be determined based on a fair assessment.
• It’s unrealistic to expect any approach to working to be “drag free.”

5. Leveraging new technologies requires adding them to rather than integrating them with or substituting them for current practices.

• We should all be open to identifying ways to work smarter, not just harder.
• The best approaches to achieving goals/objectives should be pursued.

6. It will all settle down (or maybe go away?) at some point, so why bother engaging and suffering through all the chaos before it does.

• The only constant in the Digital Era is change. Expecting things to settle down is unrealistic.
• By the time the laggards choose to engage, it could be too late. At a minimum, they will have missed out on a number of potentially great opportunities.

7. It's better to wait for a "silver bullet" solution than to invest in the necessary hard work now to climb the required learning curves and lay a foundation for future success.

• As in other aspects of running an organization, there are no silver bullets.
• Success in the Digital Era requires a new mindset, as well as new knowledge and skills. Learning new ways of working is unavoidable.

 

We're Making Progress (Slowly)

It's perfectly appropriate for individuals and organizations to decide not to take more advantage of the digital capabilities that currently exist, as long as they're making informed decisions. When it comes to organizational leaders in particular, they have a fiduciary responsibility to understand the new environments in which their organizations operate so they can provide the proper guidance, both strategic and tactical, as well as the necessary resources their organizations need. 

As a practical matter, digital  technology is only going to continue to advance, and the longer people wait to understand and embrace it, the more risks they take with respect to creating and maintaining their own success. In addition to being concerned about the ROI, in other words, they should also be thinking about the COI – the Cost Of Inaction.

Fortunately, there are encouraging signs. I'm seeing and hearing less resistance. And although there is still some reluctance, the acceptance of new realities and the need to understand (if not embrace) them is increasing. Here are a few specific examples from my own recent experiences:

• In two weeks I will be leading a digital engagement strategy session for the Midwest region of a large grocery chain. This chain's excellent brand reputation has facilitated their talent acquisition efforts for years, but as they expand into new markets where they're less well known, they recognize they have to up their digital engagement efforts to continue to attract top talent.
• Earlier this year I met with two different groups of executives and senior professionals in transition (in one case presenting Job Search in the Digital Era to over 100 job seekers). The response to both sessions was extremely positive, with virtually no skepticism about new social technologies and their importance. The recepton to those talks has led to a project focusing on how senior professionals can and should enhance their digital competencies, from both career management and organizational leadership perspectives. (If you would like to participate in this project, please email focus@denovati.net)
• I am also developing an initiative with a leadership consulting firm that will help leaders develop their digital competencies. The managing partner has the vision to recognize that no quantitative "proof" is needed to determine that this is an important area his firm and their clients must begin to tackle. Proof of concept is sufficient for him to move forward.

Although progress is often painfully slow, I am encouraged by the shifts in both attitudes and behaviors I'm seeing so far in 2013. Are you seeing encouraging signs too? If so, I'd love to hear about them!

 

Related Resources

Social and Digital Tech Trends: 9 Take-Aways for YOU

Digital Era Adaptation in 2013: A Long and Winding Road

What's Your Social Media Sophistication? The SMQ Quiz 

"Social Media" is SO 2009! 7 Proposed Semantic Upgrades

SMinOrgs Social Media Primer

Digital Era Leadership: Defining Characteristics?

Note: many of the above pieces include links to additional resources.

500+ Books about Social & Digital Technology: Trends and Opportunities

It’s probably no surprise that over 500 books have been written about social and digital technologies over the past 15+ years, and that many of these focus on social media marketing. What’s more intriguing are the topics that have not received much attention yet from thought leaders and authors. This post offers a brief introduction to a research project that explores the Digital Era literature and (in true 2.0 fashion) invites people to participate in its ongoing development.

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Last year, with the help of Marci Stewart and Genifer Snipes, I embarked on a project to identify all the books that had been written about social and digital technologies. It was a naïve quest that has turned into a very ambitious undertaking. Although I was aware of the most well-known books from the past five or so years, I had no idea how many other publications were out there, or how far back they stretched. We’re now at 520 – and counting!

In this post I share some project details, the initial high-level results, and what we plan to do next. More importantly, I’d like to invite folks to participate in the development of the project by sharing the questions, analyses, and information they’re most interested in. And of course I welcome recommendations for books lists, titles, and authors, to make sure our final list is as complete and accurate as possible.

I look forward to hearing from you!

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

 

Methodology

Here, in a nutshell, is the approach we have used to create the database:

• We selected Goodreads as our primary source of information, primarily because it’s vendor neutral – and of course it’s a social media platform in its own right!
• We seeded the list with titles from “best of” lists like The 25 Best Social Media Books of 2011, 10 Best Social Media Books, and Top Social Media Marketing Books.
• For each book we collected the publication data, Goodreads rating information, title, author(s) and book description.
• To expand the initial list we checked the titles listed under “Readers also enjoyed similar books” and “Lists with This Book.” Once we had exhausted those sources we conducted 40+ searches using all the potentially relevant terms we could think of, including general terms like social media and big data as well as specific terms like Facebook and Tumblr.
• In an effort to make the data collection effort more manageable, we only included books that were written in English and had at least one review. Yes, that’s somewhat arbitrary – but we needed some kind of cutoff! We also tried to limit the database to books that were targeted to non-technical readers.
• Throughout the process we added relevant titles as they were brought to our attention if we hadn’t already identified them.

Using the book descriptions, we created a three-tiered coding scheme to reflect their focus:

• Perspective: conceptual (focused more on conveying information or discussing topics at a high level) and tactical (“how to” oriented).
• General focus: categories ranged from macro to micro and included society, commerce, marketing, workplace, individual, and data.
• Specific focus: used to indicate if a book was specifically focused on a single topic (e.g., cloud computing, Twitter, mobile, LinkedIn).

We’re happy to provide more details about our methodology upon request. Please add a comment or email books@sminorgs.net with your specific questions.

 

Initial Results

To convey a general sense of what these 500+ books are all about, we have created two Wordles using the books’ titles (after cleaning them up by deleting unnecessary words and combining similar terms).

The first Wordle includes all the relevant terms (click to enlarge):

Because SocialMedia, Guide, Marketing and Business dominated the results, we created a second Wordle without those terms to dig a bit deeper into the books’ focus (click to enlarge):

The initial results may seem “no duh-ish” to some folks, especially early adopters. There’s nothing particularly revelatory about the fact that the books published to date have had a heavy emphasis on business, specifically social media in the context of marketing. The “how to” focus of many of these books, as well as the promises of success, are also not surprising.

But some of the emphases are less obvious. For example:

• Blogging (which has been declared “dead” at least twice in the past 5 years) remains a primary topic.
• Even though Facebook is a significantly larger platform, Twitter and LinkedIn have received relatively more emphasis as book topics.
• Although people are still wrapping their brains around what to do with data, there have been a relatively substantial number of books focused on the topic (e.g., analytics, metrics). Similarly, cloud computing has also been a fairly significant topic of discussion.

And perhaps most importantly, we need to think about what’s not been addressed, as those are the areas in which there is perhaps the greatest need – and the greatest opportunity for thought leaders and authors. These include:

• More discussion and guidance about topics like gamification and mobile technologies.
• How social and digital technologies can and should be used in non-commercial sectors, including in non-profit and religious organizations, public sector entities, and academic institutions. In a similar vein, there’s probably a need and opportunity for more focused discussions on digital communities and community management.
• Applications and implications of new technologies inside organizations (e.g., enterprise 2.0, social business, social enterprise).
• Leadership-oriented discussions, especially in terms of what it means to be a leader in the Digital Era.
• The human-capital management implications of new digital technologies, as well as legal/policy issues and risk management considerations.
• Applications and implications of new technologies for individuals, including digital competencies, jobs, professions, and careers.

 

Coming Up

We are conducting more in-depth analyses of the data (including a formal text analysis in conjunction with Silverman Research) and plan to share more results in the coming weeks/months, including:

• A slide deck of Wordles that reveal emphases by year, category, etc.
• An infographic, which will include things like the first time Social Media appears in a book title and most popular buzzword(s), as well as various representations of general and specific categories.
• A white paper that offers a more formal treatment of the methodology, results, and implications.

If you’d like to be informed as soon as these and other results are published, please join our mailing list or subscribe to the S.M.A.R.T. Blog.

 

What’s on Your Mind?

To enhance the value of this project, we’d love to hear from you. Specifically, we’d like to know things like:

• What books would you like to make sure we include? Are there specific “best” lists we should double check? Favorite books or authors? Your own tomes? We’re especially interested in hearing about recently-published books, as we are more likely to have missed them.
• What other topics, categories and/or questions do you think are important to explore?
• What questions do you have? What would you like to know? What are you curious about?

Please add a comment or email books@sminorgs.net with your specific suggestions. Thanks!

 

Related Content

Paper or Digital? The Results are In… And It’s a (Virtual) Tie! With over 500 votes and nearly 200 comments, the results of a recent poll indicate people are fairly evenly split between paper and digital book formats. Although the poll wasn’t perfectly scientific, the richness of its results can be of great value to authors, book publishers, and designers, as well as professionals in other fields such as training and development, academia, and communications.

4 Big Barriers to Social Media Adoption in Organizations: Key Research Findings. The results of a unique and ground-breaking study by Silverman Research (n=644+) indicate that there are four main barriers to increased adoption of social technologies in organizations: lack of knowledge and understanding, unprepared leadership, fear, and the absence of a well-grounded business case. This post highlights those findings and offers recommendations for overcoming the barriers. It also provides a link to a free report with details on the research and its results.

7 Reasons To Love - and Embrace - SlideShare

Most people have heard of SlideShare, but they probably don't realize how powerful and diverse the platform is, or the important role it can play in their content marketing and digital engagement efforts. This post offers seven reasons for taking another look and considering an upgrade in 2013.

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According to this infographic, SlideShare is the "quiet giant of content marketing." I consider our SlideShare (SS) presence a vital part of the SMinOrgs and GCDEL digital network. We've had a Silver Pro account ($19/month) for years, and it's definitely been a worthwhile investment.

Here are some of the reasons SS could make a significant contribution to your digital presence and engagement as well...

1. It's not just for sharing slides. Sure, it's a great way to share samples of your work and expertise via presentation decks, but you can also use it to share documents (like the SMQ Quiz and the Trickle-Up Socialnomics white paper) and videos (like these clips from a presentation atAllstate).

2. It reduces the need for attachments. When you want to share content (e.g., a presentation deck) with someone, you can include a hyperlinked reference to the deck on SS in an email rather than attaching a large file. The new "Send Tracker" feature for Pro accounts makes sharing presentation decks even easier, and also provides tracking data.

3. It's public AND private. With a Pro account you can upload files you want to share only with select groups (e.g., attendees from a private, paid-for presentation), as well as files you want to share widely. The private files have a "secret url" you can then send to folks via email or embed in a document.

4. It can be used for live presentations and meetings. The Zipcast feature can provide a great alternative to services like GoToMeeting or free screen sharing tools, especially when you're presenting to or meeting with a small group.

5. You can do LOTS of tracking. SS provides ongoing counts of the number of people who have viewed, favorited, and downloaded shared content. With a Pro account you can also gather "leads" from folks who have downloaded files. And when a presentation is trending on another platform like LinkedIn or Facebook, SS will feature it on its home page. We've been fortunate to have that happen with our content about half a dozen times!

6. It's a search engine. This is probably the #1 reason to love SS, even though few people talk about it. I certainly try to cross-promote our SS content via other channels like LI, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest, but most of the views come from within SS itself. For example, there have been over 15,000 views of the different versions of the SMQ Quiz over the past couple of years, the majority of which have come from searches within SS.

7. They keep getting better. Even before SS was acquired by LI, they were committed to continously improving and enhancing their product and features. For example, with a Pro account you can add audio files to your presentation decks to turn them imto slidecasts, and can embed YouTube videos in them as well.  And although there was a bit of hue and cry when the SS application was disabled in LI, the new integration between the two platforms is much better and offers much more control.

Are you an avid user/fan of SlideShare? What other recommendations for leveraging it would you add?

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

 

More of Our Sample Content

In addition to the items referenced above, here are five examples of the kinds of diverse content we've had a lot of success sharing via SlideShare:

• SMinOrgs flyer
• Blogging: A Comprehensive Beginner's Guide
• Twitter Hashtag Decision Making Flow Chart
• Career Management in the Digital Era
• Impact 99 Closing Keynote

Of course there's much more. Please visit our SlideShare channel to check it out!

9 Digital Era Photo Essays

Nine photo essays, using images from around the world, tell nine different but similar stories about life in the Digital Era, highlighting social media and digital technologies. These stories focus on both individuals and organizations and emphasize the need to adapt to changing times in ways that blend the best of the earth with the best of the cloud.

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I am a visual person, which is one of the main reasons I've been so enthusiastic about establishing an SMinOrgs presence on Pinterest and Tumblr. I especially love photo imagery. I've been an avid photographer most of my life, and as my friends and family can attest, I love using pictures to tell a story... 

Though it wasn't intentional, the first official S.M.A.R.T. Blog post I wrote was a photo essay reflecting on what the city of Rome, Italy can teach us about building digital communities. Since then I've created eight more photo essays via different media. This post highlights all of them, categorized in two groups: Signs of the (Changing) Times and Digital Era Reflections.

I hope you get as much out of viewing them as I did out of creating them. And if you know of other great Digital Era photo essays, please add a link in the comments. Thanks!

Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

PS - You can find more original photos and reflections in our Digital Era Images and THIS is Social Media Pinterest boards.

 

Signs of the (Changing) Times

Social and Digital Technology in Rome and Cairo. A Facebook album that contains examples of social media and other digital technologies from my trip to Rome, Italy and Cairo, Egypt in February 2010. I was particularly interested in examples that contained elements of surprise or defied people's expectations of how these technologies can and should be used.

 

 

Tourism in the Digital Era. A Facebook album that shares some of the ways in which digital technology in general - and social media in particular - enriched a road trip in the summer of 2011. Also check out the accompanying blog post: Technology-Enriched Travel: 10 Take-Aways that Reveal Digital Era Truths.

 

Celebrating "Books" in the Digital Era. A Facebook album of photos from the 2012 Printer's Row Lit Fest in Chicago, which used to be called the Printer's Row Book Fair. As our notion of what a "book" is morphed, and print media gave way to digital media, the name - and what was being celebrated - also had to change. These images and my observations reflect those changes.

 

Dublin in the Digital Era: A City in Transition. Using images from a recent trip to Dublin, Ireland (Sept 2012), this SlideShare photo essay offers examples of how the city and its residents are moving forward into the Digital Era, while simultaneously clinging to remnants of a paper-based way of life.

 

An Post: A Venerable Institution Transforms Itself. On the trip to Dublin, I was also captivated by the country's Post Office (An Post). Unlike the US postal system, An Post seems to have done a great job of transforming itself over time to adapt to changing circumstances and technologies. This SlideShare photo essay offers examples of how it has embraced and responded to Digital Era realities, and demonstrates that its current adaptive capacity is deeply rooted in a history of flexibility and nimbleness. 

 

Technology at the HR Tech Conference: Old School Meets New. The significant progress the HR industry has made in developing and leveraging social and digital technologies was clear at the 2012 HR Tech Conference in Chicago. Especially impressive was how "high tech" was used to facilitate "high touch" interactions.

 

 

Digital Era Reflections

11 Lessons about Digital Communities from Rome. I visited Rome for the first time in 2010. Struck by powerful images, I decided to study the city while I explored it. Viewing it as a metaphor for virtual communities, I was curious to see what kinds of insights I could glean into the factors that should be considered when building, maintaining, and participating in digital communities. I identified 11 lessons, organized into three themes.

 

 

 

The Early Bird May Get the Worm, But the Brave Bird Gets... The Fries?!?! In June 2010, I (unintentionally) shared my lunch with some brave sparrows who made me reflect on the role of bravery in the context of social media adoption.

 

 

Think You Know What Social Media Is? Think Again. Using images from a road trip in the summer of 2011, this SlideShare photo essay demonstrates that social media is about more than digital technology. The essay strives to demystify social media and get people to think more broadly about it and its economic and social roles. Providing this perspective on digital manifestations of social media should help everyone from rookies to mavens, detractors to advocates, understand that today's social media isn't just novel - it's normal.

Tumbln into Tumblr IV

A sample of the activity on the SMinOrgs (and GCDEL) Tumblelog, this post shares entries about social and digital technologies including a mini-blog post about jury duty in the Digital Era, the results of two research studies, and six images ranging from the silly to the serious.

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Earlier this year SMinOrgs (and GCDEL) established a presence on Tumblr, and I have become an ardent fan. I detailed some of the reasons for my Tumblr enthusiasm in a post entitled Tumbln into Tumblr: 7 Reasons it Hits a Social Media “Sweet Spot”. To demonstrate the platform's versatility, I share some our activity as a regular feature on this blog. I hope you enjoy the entries as much as we do.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

Here are some of the items we "tumbld" from October 16 through October 31, 2012. Scroll down or click on the links below to check each entry out.

• Jury Duty in the Digital Era (sort of)
• An Exhaustive Study of Twitter Users Across the World
• Touch-Screen Fleece Gloves

• Hear no evil, See no evil, Speak no evil, Post no evil

• The Internet is a lot like Ancient Egypt
• How Millennial Are You? Quiz
• A Wordle of Terms from the SMinOrgs S.M.A.R.T. Blog
• Twitter Life Goals
• Email Versus Wiki Collaboration Graphic a Big Hit

We generally post one item to Tumblr each morning, Monday through Friday. If you'd like to be notified of our Tumblr content as soon as it's published, you can follow us if you have your own Tumblr account or you can subscribe to our Tumblr posts via RSS feed or email. We also share regular “Today on Tumblr” posts via some of our other social networks, and of course you can visit our page whenever you like!

Also check out:

• Tumbln into Tumblr III
• Tumbln into Tumblr II
• Tumbln into Tumblr I

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Jury Duty in the Digital Era (sort of)
Posted October 16, 2012

I was recently called as a potential juror by the Cook County Circuit Court, Criminal Division. I wasn’t selected, but the experience still took an entire day, most of which was spent waiting. Here are a few Digital Era observations that I thought were worth sharing:

• The summons indicated no cameras were allowed, so I left my mobile device in the car. In the waiting room, though, I saw smart phones everywhere! Needless to say, I retrieved mine during the lunch break and got it through security with no problem…
• After everyone had arrived, they showed a video about what it means to be a juror. Although most people listened attentively, it’s unlikely anyone learned much since virtually everything in the video is generally covered in the many courtroom dramas on TV. More importantly, although they cautioned everyone not to investigate or discuss cases with friends and family, and they gave specific examples of what that would mean (e.g., visiting a crime scene), they never expressly mentioned social media - or even the internet! The same basic thing happened when we were given guidance by the judge in court as well…
• We were also cautioned emphatically not to have newspapers visible in the courtroom. Granted, a few people were actually reading print news in the waiting area, but most people were using their digital devices, so I’m not sure the emphasis was necessary.
• One thing they (kind of) did right was tell everyone to completely turn their phones off before entering the courtroom (not on vibrate, not on silent - completely off!).

Obviously, this court needs a digital upgrade - but it’s far from being the most out-of-date court I’ve experienced. Two years ago I had to take a client to small claims court for non-payment, and I was forced to fill out lots of paper forms and even drive to Michigan to make the claim. Their model was still firmly grounded in the notion that work can only occur in local, earth-bound settings.

What have your experiences been? Do you have similar examples of out-of-date court systems? Any that you think are great examples of how to run systems in the Digital Era? I’d love to hear from you.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

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An Exhaustive Study of Twitter Users Across the World: Beevolve
Posted October 17, 2012

An Exhaustive Study of Twitter Users Across the World: Beevolve.

Our Social Media Monitoring platform mines through millions of conversations every day for our customers. Out of these millions of conversations, quite a few happen to come from Twitter. We realized that we could do a large-scale in-depth study of Twitter users to better understand what is the average profile of a person using Twitter and hence this mammoth study on 36 million Twitter user profiles. Our core competency lies in analytics and by using our own software, we were able to crunch numbers and generate insights which we believe hasn’t been conducted to such large scale till date.

(via An Exhaustive Study of Twitter Users Across the World)

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Touch-Screen Fleece Gloves
Posted October 19, 2012

Touch-screen fleece gloves. The catalog description reads: Designed for smartphone users on the go, the fore-fingers and thumbs on these gloves incorporates conductive thread that activates the touchscreen. A fingertip flip-up exposes your finger for fine-tuned use; texture palm keeps your phone firmly in hand… I don’t know whether to applaud the ingenuity or shake my head and roll my eyes. : ) - csh

(via SMinOrgs on Pinterst: Digital Era Images)

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Hear no evil, See no evil, Speak no evil, Post no evil
Posted October 22, 2012

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, post no evil… Buddhist Boot Camp encourages everyone to “promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate (be it over email, text, Facebook or Twitter).”

Digital Era words to live by. Thanks to my friend Joy for sharing this on Facebook. -csh

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The Internet is a lot like Ancient Egypt
Posted October 24, 2012

Love this! Thanks to Pek Pongpaet (one of the founders of Pinstagram) for bringing this to my attention via FB. - csh

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How Millennial Are You? Quiz
Posted October 25, 2012

How Millennial Are You? The quiz from Pew Research Center.

This quiz was interesting and kind of fun. I scored a 75. How about you? - csh

Also check out this related article that referenced the quiz: Three Reasons You Need To Adopt A Millennial Mindset Regardless Of Your Age.

(via How Millennial Are You?)

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A Wordle of Terms from the SMinOrgs S.M.A.R.T. Blog
Posted October 29, 2012

A Wordle of Terms from the SMinOrgs S.M.A.R.T. Blog, as of October 26, 2012.

Unlike our last Wordle, which was heavily dominated by our new-found love of Tumblr, this Wordle illustrates the general diversity of our posts. -csh

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Twitter Life Goals
Posted October 30, 2012

Twitter Life Goals . @SlayerSays’s potent tweet is illustrated by Twaggies. Be sure to check out more great Twaggies comics on Mashable, and let us know if you’ve spied a funny tweet that’s just begging for a visual.

What I find most interesting about this is the notion that Mashable has created a feature that allows people to convert tweets into cartoons. Sign of the times… - csh 

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Email Versus Wiki Collaboration Graphic a Big Hit
Posted October 31, 2012

Email Versus Wiki Collaboration Graphic a Big Hit.

Someone recently shared a blog post with this image via LinkedIn. The image perfectly captures a point I like to make about how much more efficient digital workspaces are than email when it comes to collaboration. The best thing about the image, though? It was created in 2007!

Be sure to read the related Wikinomics blog post too.

 

LinkedIn Poll: Books about Social and Digital Technology

For the past few years I have wanted to create a definitive list of books written about social and digital technologies. This year I have finally been able to undertake the project in earnest, thanks to the help of Marci Stewart and (especially) Genifer Snipes.

Our data collection efforts are winding down, and we are getting ready to start sharing some of our findings. Before we do, I'm curious to know people's perceptions of the number of titles available, so I've created a quick poll on LinkedIn. I appreciate your taking a minute to respond to the poll (below or directly on LinkedIn) and reshare it with your social and digital networks.

Interested in learning what the poll reveals, as well as the correct answer? Check back in about a month or subscribe to the SMinOrgs S.M.A.R.T. Blog to be updated as soon as they're published. In the next few weeks we'll be sharing a post that presents our "Wordle analyses" of the titles and descriptions of the books we've found so far, and in early 2013 we'll be presenting infographics with some fascinating statistics.

Don't know what a Wordle is? Read this post to learn more.

You may also be interested in a related poll we conducted in 2011: Paper or Digital? The Results are In... And it's a (Virtual) Tie!

And speaking of polls, you may also want to check out: Leveraging LinkedIn Polls: 21 Quick Tips to Maximize Success

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

 

Tumbln into Tumblr III

A sample of the activity on the SMinOrgs (and GCDEL) Tumblelog, this post shares recent entries about social and digital technologies ranging from videos (3 of them!) to research reports to original photos. A little something for everyone...

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SMinOrgs (and GCDEL) recently established a presence on Tumblr, and I have become an ardent fan. I detailed some of the reasons for my Tumblr enthusiasm in a post entitled Tumbln into Tumblr: 7 Reasons it Hits a Social Media “Sweet Spot”. I'd like to demonstrate the platform's versatility by sharing our activity as a regular feature on this blog. I hope you enjoy the entries as much as we do.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

Here are some of the items we "tumbld" from October 1 through October 15, 2012. Scroll down or click on the links below to check each entry out.

• Digital Era Psychic?
• Social Media ROI Video
• Digital Era Tourist Attraction
• Iron Mountain Adapts to Digital Era Realities
• America Online Video circa 1995
• Social Media Around the World 2012 Report

We generally post one item to Tumblr each morning, Monday through Friday. If you'd like to be notified of our Tumblr content as soon as it's published, you can follow us if you have your own Tumblr account (we follow back!), or you can subscribe to our Tumblr posts via RSS feed or email. We also share regular “Today on Tumblr” posts via some of our other social networks, and of course you can visit our page whenever you like!

• Click here to check out Tumbln into Tumblr I
• Click here to check out Tumbln into Tumblr II

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A Digital Era Psychic?
Posted October 1, 2012

Wow. A must watch. Both entertaining and sobering.

Shared with me by @Nathalief, whom I met at the Social Media in HR Summit in Dublin last week. - csh

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Social Media ROI Video
Posted October 5, 2012

productivegossip:

Social Media ROI Video by Ignite Social Media

Inspired by the video? Also check out Ignited’s white paper: 6 Models for Measuring the ROI of Social Media Marketing

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Digital Era Tourist Attraction
Posted October 7, 2012

This photo kiosk on Michigan Avenue in Chicago was a hoot! Pam Ross and I got a huge kick out of it! The “touch screen” was tough to use, but we were finally successful at sharing the image.

Click here to learn more about Elevate Digital via Facebook.

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Iron Mountain Adapts to Digital Era Realities
Posted October 8, 2012

Anyone who’s been working long enough thinks of Iron Mountain as a company that stores paper. This van shows how they’ve changed their business model to adapt to Digital Era realities. The “Now Hiring!” ad indicates that their traditional business is still thriving, however. I wonder what the van will say in another few years. - csh (September 2012)

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America Online Video circa 1995
Posted October 9, 2012

Awesome AOL video (circa 1985) demonstrates the deep roots of social technologies.

This video was embedded in a piece written by Steve Case titled Even in 1985, We Knew Facebook Was Possible. The article is okay, but the video is a must-watch. Who believes that was 17 years ago?!?! And does anyone besides me remember how much AOL spammed us, via the US mail, to get us to sign up? - csh

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Social Media Around the World 2012 Report
Posted October 12, 2012

Social Media around the World 2012 report by InSites Consulting (data collected by SSI and translations by No Problem). (click on the image to access the full report on SlideShare)

The full reports offers 5 eye-catching insights on the status of social media and more than 2.000 facts & figures about social media in 19 countries. Topics cover main adoption and usage, interactions of consumers with brands, impact of branded conversations, evolution of mobile and the opportunities for structural collaboration between consumers and brands. For more information contact Marketing@InSites-Consulting.com.

Impact99: HR Summit 2012... Tidbits and Take-aways

Using social tools Storify, SlideShare, and Hashcaster, as well as some original images and other attendees's blog posts, this post shares excerpts that offer a bit of flavor and some insights from the 2012 Impact99 Conference in Toronto.

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On October 24, 2012 I had the honor of being the closing keynote speaker at Impact99, HR Summit 2012, in Toronto. I also had the privilege of attending the entire event - listening to other speakers, watching and participating in a very active live Twitter feed (#impact99), and meeting and interacting with a diverse group of professionals who were nearly-uniform in their interest in and enthusiasm for creating and supporting the workplace of the future.

One of the biggest take-aways from the Toronto event, as well as the preceding one in Vancouver, is that it needs to be replicated in as many places as possible - and as often as possible! Not just because the idea of facilitating social workplaces is so important, but because there was something unique and wonderful about the design of the day and how the speakers and topics inspired people and motivated them to action.

Though I can't possible do the event justice, I'd like to share some excerpts that offer a bit of flavor and perhaps some insights. First off, I created two Storify stories from the Twitter stream: one to capture my tweets during the day, and the other to capture the tweets during my closing talk.

• Impact99 - SMinOrgs Observations, Toronto (2012)
• Impact99 - Closing Keynote, Toronto (2012)

You can view the final slide deck for my keynote below or via the SMinOrgs SlideShare channel. 

You can also check out the Impact99 Hashcaster page for a more complete collection of tweets and other digital content. And here are post-conference reflections from some other attendees:

• Impact99 - Igniting a Social Workplace (Jim Crocker)
• Impact 99 (Sarah Hallam)

Finally, I included a few more images from the day below. It was a great conference, and I'm glad I was able to help end the day on a high note. Christine McLeod, Pam Ross and their volunteer crew did an awesome job putting the event together. I'm looking forward to the next one!

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

 

Impact 99 Closing Keynote from Social Media in Organizations (SMinOrgs)

Getting started

Eight Principles of a Social Workplace - Attendee Assessment

One of the CEO Think Tank presentations

Learning Pod sign-up sheets - sometimes you gotta kick it old school!

Dan Pontefract's Learning Circle