S.M.A.R.T. Blog

The Denovati Pledge - Would Love to Add Your Voice

The Denovati are Digital Era explorers, pathfinders and pioneers who seek to understand and effectively leverage social and digital technologies. The Denovati Pledge reflects the commitments, hopes, promises, motivations, goals, and/or interests of members of The Denovati. If you consider yourself a member of The Denovati (and really, shouldn’t we all be?), you’re invited to make a public declaration to be shared on The Denovati Group’s website.

 

The new website for The Denovati Group is coming along nicely. One of the features I'd like to include is a page where individuals and organizations share their commitments as members of The Denovati.

The Denovati are Digital Era explorers, pathfinders and pioneers
who seek to understand and effectively leverage
social and digital technologies

 

What are Digital Era explorers, pathfinders and pioneers?

• Explorers are futurists and leading-edge thinkers, as well as organizations pushing boundaries and searching for new frontiers of technological capability.
• Pathfinders are early adopters who test and determine the value and viability of new digital tools and platforms, as well as organizations that seek out the best ways to leverage new technologies to address specific needs.
• Pioneers are later adopters who not only help establish the longer-term viability of new technologies but also devise the best approaches to related practical issues like governance, risk management, and human capital management.

Don't think of yourself as an Explorer, Pathfinder, or Pioneer? No worries. The Denovati is an inclusive identity that also incorporates people who are just getting started on their own digital journeys - no experience required!

 

What’s the Denovati Pledge?

Members of The Denovati are unified by a shared interest in and commitment to enhancing individual and organizational success through social and digital technologies. The Denovati Pledge is an expression of that commitment through a succinct statement that reflects one’s primary focus or key priority. Here are a few sample pledges (all of which begin with the phrase, "As a Member of The Denovati”):

• I am committed to ensuring people (especially organizational leaders) receive the education and training they need to develop and maintain the digital competencies required for success in the Digital Era.
• I am passionate about social learning and collaboration, digital transformation of organisations and how we engage with the future.
• I hope to provide thought leadership that will enable changes brought about by mobile, social, big data and cloud to lead to positive outcomes for businesses and their employees.

 

How to Make a Pledge

Anyone can make a pledge – you don't have to be an early adopter or thought leader, or even feel like you have any expertise (yet). Pledges can be made by organizations as well as individuals.

You also don’t have to be formally affiliated with The Denovati Group to make a pledge, but you do have to follow two rules. Here they are:

1. Your pledge should begin with a phrase like one of those above. Other examples include, “My primary concern is," or "I am primarily interested in," “Our goal is,” and “We strive to.”
2. Your pledge must be no more than 200 characters total, including spaces. The phrase "As a member of The Denovati" does not count as part of the 200 character limit.

In addition to your pledge, you may also provide urls for your LI profile, and any relevant (i.e., focused on social and digital technologies) website, blog or other social media presence (i.e., Twitter, Google+, Facebook). We’d also love to know whether you consider yourself an Explorer, Pathfinder, or Pioneer – or some combination of the three!

Please send your pledge and additional information to denovati@denovati.com.

We reserve the right to edit pledges, request additional information, and/or exclude any information/links that don’t meet our standards. We will notify you when the page is published.

I’m looking forward to reading – and sharing – your pledges. Thanks!

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD - Founder, The Denovati Group

PS – Although the site hasn’t been officially launched yet, we have set up the Denovati SMART Blog and have begun posting to it. If you’d like to subscribe, click here.

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

 

Digital Era Terms and Expressions: Sharing Favorites

What's in a word? A lot, more often than not! Language is a powerful reflection of the world in which we live and the realities we must embrace, a fluid and ever-changing reminder that neither time nor progress stands still. This post shares some of my favorite Digital Era terms and expressions and invites others to participate in a crowdsourcing exercise to expand the list.

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Like other tranformational periods in history, the Digital Era has spawned its fair share of new terms and expressions. Today, people don't think twice when they hear once-nonexistent words like email and internet, and they easily understand new meanings of terms like web, cellular, and tablet. Google has entered the vernacular as a verb, virtually (pun intended) achieving Kleenex or Coke status by becoming a generic term that's used to refer to more than just the brand itself. And speaking of brands, who knew we'd be referring to new products and services with names like HootSuite, Spotify, Dropbox, Flickr, Yelp, and Tumblr?  

As newer social and digital technologies become more fully integrated into our lives, commerce, and the larger culture, we've become increasingly comfortable saying things like ping me and message me, as well as ascribing new meaning to terms like friending, tweeting, linking, profile, page...

The list of new terms and meanings is seemingly endless, as our language - and the ideas that the language we use conveys - continue to evolve. Earlier this year, I wrote "Social Media" is SO 2009! 7 Proposed Semantic Upgrades. Now I'd like to crowdsource a collection of Digital Era terms (new words, acronyms) and expressions (quotable quotes, bon mots) that goes beyond the basics to reflect some of the newer and/or more sophisticated phenomena we're dealing with.

I'll kick things off by sharing a somewhat random collection of some of my favorites. What are yours?

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

 

New Words and Acronyms

Cost of Inaction (COI): I've now lost track of who originated this term, but it's a great concept to include in discussions of ROI (Return on Investment and other variations) in the context of digital engagement because it highlights the fact that "doing nothing" is not a risk-free option.

Denovati:The Denovati are "Digital Era explorers, pathfinders and immigrants who see to understand and effectively leverage new social and digital technologies." Yes, it is our new brand identity (click here for details), but I would be remiss if I didn't include it. 

Jobgram: This term has been trademarked by a company in New Zealand that creates infographics and videographics that provide quick descriptions and realistic previews of jobs. They refer to what they do as "Next-level job advertising" and refer to the products they create as "visually engaging job opportunities." Brilliant.

SMAC: On my personal favorite new terms is SMAC, which stands for social (software), mobile (devices and access), (data) analytics, and cloud (computing) and reflects the convergence among these technology movements. The term is short, comprehensive, catchy, and memorable - a descriptor that is as psychologically powerful as the movements it describes.

Technosapien: I learned this term from a commenter on a Fast Company article I read in 2012. To me it means a person who has a strong understanding of and facility with new technology. It's kind of awkward, but its retro-scientific vibe appeals to me.

Tutoricle: This is actually the name of a blog site, but I love the idea of using the term more broadly to describe articles and blog posts that are focused on teaching something and/or providing how-to guidance. We could also have tutorigrams and tutoreos... :)

Videographic: Basically, an animated infographic. Interestingly, although the term is relatively new the idea may actually have preceded infographics. Erik Qualman's classic socialnomics video (original version produced in 2009) comes to mind... Speaking of which, socialnomics is a great term in and of itself - as is his newer term (and related video) - mobilenomics!

 

Quotable Quotes and Bon Mots

It's a Brave New World... Even if you want the old one back!

People often use "brave new world" to describe the Digital Era, but extending the idea is a reminder to laggards and Luddites and late adopters that the world they knew (and preferred) no longer exists.

Technology creation, adoption, and adaptation are fundamentally human endeavors.

There is such a strong tendency to anthropomorphize technology that it's important to reinforce that it's people who give it life and sustain it.

Technology doesn't care how old you are.

I am not a big fan of the Digital Native/Digital Immigrant distinction. Although it's important to recognize and respond to the growing digital divide, we have to be careful not to correlate age and digital competencies too strongly. It's a language in which we all should strive to be fluent.

Saying social media is "just" a communications tool is like saying a nuclear power plant is "just" a way to turn on the lights.

I came up with this expression in response to the well-intentioned but misguided efforts of many earlier adopters to try to reduce the fear and perceived risks of using new technologies.

Simple doesn't mean easy.

The relative simplicity of many social media platforms and tools can lead to a misconception that it's relatively easy to learn how to use them efficiently and effectively. It's not.

Related ideas: Strategy trumps tactics. and Technology is not a substitute for good judgment.

Digital engagement can be described as "hours of tedium punctuated by moments of 'Oh #@&(%!'”

A variant of the old pilot's expression: Flying is hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror

Everything in cyberspace is subject to change – often in an instant and without any warning!

A variant of a bumper sticker saying from the Quest Bookshop in Charlottesville, Virginia: Everything in the Universe is subject to change–and everything is on schedule!”

Denovati, Here We (Be)Come!

Earlier this year we announced an initiative to create a new brand identity for the SMinOrgs Community. This blog post details the reasons for making the switch, as well as the 13 criteria we developed for selecting the best new brand. As the effort evolved, it became evident that what we were doing was much bigger than simply coming up with a new name for SMinOrgs. It was really about rebranding and consolidating SMinOrgs, the Renaissance Strategic Solutions consultancy, and the Global Center for Digital Era Leadership (GCDEL) under a single unified identity.

The results of a survey we conducted in February to solicit feedback on the four brand options we had identified produced a clear winner: Denovati (day-no-VAH-tee), which translates roughly as follows:

• DE = Digital Era
• NOV = short for novani, the Latin term for colonists, immigrants, new residents...
• ATI = those who seek knowledge and/or are in the know

Put another way, the Denovati are Digital Era explorers, pathfinders and immigrants who seek to understand and effectively leverage new social and digital technologies.

The Denovati Group can be viewed as an alliance that enhances the success of individuals and organizations in the Digital Era. Here's an overview of how the alliance will be organized, along with some of our working taglines (click the image to enlarge it).

 

 

Our working short descriptions are as follows:

• The Denovati Group enhances the success of individuals and organizations in the Digital Era through research, thought leadership and guidance, consulting and training services, and a professional community that fosters communication and collaboration.
• The S.M.A.R.T. Blog explores the applications and implications of Social Media And Related Technologies in organizations, focusing on both opportunities and challenges from both conceptual and tactical perspectives.
• S.M.A.R.T. Resources include white papers, research reports, ebooks and other materials that provide both strategic and tactical Digital Era guidance for individuals and organizations.
• Denovati Solutions (formerly Renaissance Strategic Solutions) helps individuals and organizations function more efficiently and effectively in the Digital Era through the design and implementation of innovative and leading-edge strategies and programs.
• The Denovati Network (formerly the Social Media in Organizations (SMinOrgs) Community) is a global, multi-disciplinary professional community that helps individuals at all skill levels successfully navigate Digital Era opportunities and challenges.
• Through research and thought leadership, the Denovati Institute (formerly the Global Center for Digital Era Leadership (GCDEL) and SMinOrgs) provides a forum for exploring important Digital Era issues that individuals, organizations, economies and societies face.

We are still finalizing our brand identity, including the logo and color scheme, and have started building our new website and related digital network. We'll be revealing additional changes gradually, targeting a full official reveal by the end of May.

Stay tuned... Lots of new and exciting developments are in the works!

Do People Need Social Media Training? Yes. And (Much) More.

Earlier this year I shared my thoughts about online social learning communities in response to a Forbes post by Meghan Biro. This post supplements those ideas by reflecting on a 2012 series written by Shel Holtz about social media training:

• Part 1: Introducing a series on social media training
• Part 2: Getting buy-in for social media training
• Part 3: Research is at the heart of social media training
• Part 4: Social media training for employees: decisions, decisions
• Part 5: Should C-suites and boards of directors be exempt from social media training?

I'm always glad to see others write about the need for education and training, which becomes more important as the gap between technological and human capabilities continues to grow. I especially appreciate the thought and effort leaders like Shel Holtz put into helping leaders understand why the issue is important and how it can be addressed most effectively.

But just as marketing is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the applications of new communications technologies, so is social media training when it comes to Digital Era competencies. Based on my own research and writing on the subject, as well as the preliminary results of some focus groups on digital competencies I've been conducting, I offer the following considerations for both individuals and organizations:

1. As internal applications and implications of social and digital technologies expand (and will become far more pervasive and relevant to workers of all types), the training provided by organizations will need to expand as well. The focus must move beyond external discussions on public platforms to internal communication and collaboration on private digital networks. No functional area is exempt.

2. Our prevailing LIY (Learn It Yourself) attitude may have some limited effectiveness for personal uses of new technologies, but it is both inefficient and ineffective for professional uses. Most people - and especially later adopters - need help to develop the competencies they need. There has to be a balance between formal and informal learning, with different weights applied to each depending on an individual's baseline competencies. The ultimate goal, however, should be to enable people to engage in self-directed learning.

3. Education and training will have to range from high-level concepts to specific skills. Everyone should know how to do basic tasks like insert and crop an image and hyperlink text, for example, but they should also have at least a basic understanding of things like the role of mobile technology in commerce and legal considerations for both individuals and organizations.

4. Similarly, we have to focus on both the simple and complex. Yes, learning can often be boiled down to a few simple points, but those points hardly reflect everything someone needs to know. For example, knowing basic accounting principles like "assets = liabilities + owners' equity" and "revenue - expenses = net profit" is important, but that knowledge hardly qualifies someone to be a bookkeeper, let alone a CPA or CFO. 

5. Education and training must also address strategic and tactical considerations, again to varying degrees depending on the learners and the learning objectives. In addition to knowing what they need to do and how, professionals - and especially organizational leaders - need to understand why they should be be doing it.

6. Not everything can or should be taught in house. Some aspects of education and training should be customized, but general concepts and skills can be developed through more standard approaches. We need more valuable services to provide what organizations need - and organizational leaders must be willing to make the necessary investments in those services.

7. Higher education - especially in professional schools like business - has a critical role to play in developing competent Digital Era professionals and effective Digital Era leaders. There is MUCH more that they can and should be doing to create the necessary foundations for ongoing professional development of all types.

You can learn more about Digital Era competencies and the need for education and training through the Related Resources listed below. I encourage folks to share additional resources and especially welcome comments and questions about the challenges faced by digital rookies and what they need to bridge their own digital divides.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD 

 

Related Resources

10 Digital Era Truths

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

Digital Era Adaptation in 2013: A Long and Winding Road

The New Digital Divide: Thoughts for Leaders and Laggards

Digital Era Competencies: How Do You Stack Up?

What's Your Social Media Sophistication? The SMQ (version III)

Social Media Education and Training: Pro or Con? Please Discuss…

Social Media Education & Training: Where We Are. Where We’re Going.

A Master’s Degree Specialization in Social Media & Online Communities

Digital Era Leadership: The Role of Business Schools

For even more resources, check out slides 35-42 from my closing Impact99 keynote, The Road Forward: Striving for Balance. More recent pieces can be found in the blog archives from December to the present. 

Welcome to the Digital Era. Now What Do You Do?

Like many professionals - especially those who have attained "senior" status - you are probably unsure of the steps you need to take to enhance your skillset to include digital competencies. If that's the case, you may benefit from participating in a discussion group focused on Digital Era opportunities and challenges. This post provides details and an invitation...

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Earlier this year I gave presentations to two groups of senior professionals in transition. With the first group, comprised of HR professionals, I talked about what it means to be a leader in the Digital Era. For the second group, which included 100+ people from all functional areas, I gave a formal presentation on career management and job search.

One of the most profound take-aways from both sessions was the sincere interest the attendees had in better understanding social and digital technologies and how they can be used by individuals and organizations. They fully understand they can no longer dismiss social media as a fad, but they've barely begun to leverage new technologies to achieve their goals - primarily because they are overwhelmed by the possibilities and have no clue where to start.

Over the past several years I've researched and written about Digital Era leadership, digital competencies, and the need for formal education and training, but I always felt like a lone voice crying out in the wilderness. It's very exciting to now see signs of a growing appetite and demand for learning and understanding among later adopters, especially those who occupy senior ranks.

To capitalize on this interest and determine the best ways to help these professionals climb the necessary learning curves, I have decided to run some discussion groups focused on Digital Era opportunities and challenges, from both individual and organizational perspectives. These sessions, which begin next week, will help me better understand the perspective and needs of digital rookies in particular, and will help participants better understand what they need to know/do to be successful as their careers progress.

The initial focus groups are comprised of senior professionals from all functional areas who are currently in job transition, but I also welcome the opportunity to talk with people who are currently working and those in earlier career stages. 

If you'd like to participate in one of these focus groups, please send a message expressing your interest to focus@sminorgs.net. Please be sure to include a link to your LinkedIn profile, so I can learn more about you. In the short term these groups will be face-to-face, so participation will be limited to folks in/near Chicago, but we can experiment with virtual discussions as well if there's enough interest.

Thanks! I look forward to hearing from you.

Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

 

Related Resources

Welcome to the Digital Era

• 10 Digital Era Truths (link)
• The New Digital Divide: Thoughts for Leaders and Laggards (link)
• Digital Era Competencies: How Do You Stack Up? (link)
• Social and Digital Tech Trends: 9 Take-Aways for YOU (link)
• "Social Media" is SO 2009! 7 Proposed Semantic Upgrades (link)

Digital Era Leadership

• What Does it Take to be a Leader in the Digital Era? (link)
• 4 Big Barriers to Social Media Adoption in Organizations: Key Research Findings (link)
• Digital Era Adaptation in 2013: A Long and Winding Road (link)
• The Social Media ROI Challenge: Are We Making Progress? (link)

 For additional resources, check out slides 44-51 in the Job Search in the Digital Era presentation deck.

 

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.

SMinOrgs is Becoming The Denovati ____ (help us decide)

Earlier this year we announced an initiative to create a new brand identity for SMinOrgs. This blog post details the reasons for making a switch, as well as the 13 criteria we developed for selecting the best new brand.

The results of the survey we conducted to solicit feedback on the four options we identified produced a clear winner: Denovati (day-no-VAH-tee), which translates roughly as follows:

• De = Digital Era
• Nov = short for novani, the Latin term for colonists, immigrants, new residents...
• Ati = being in the know

I will share detailed results and reflections on the survey in a future post, but for now I'd like additional input on what the new official name of the SMinOrgs Community should be. In other words, although Denovati will be the brand identity, it doesn't by itself reflect what this group is and what it does. Here's a current working description of the group:

We are a global, multi-disciplinary group of professionals who share information and resources and collaborate with one another to identify and create best practices. Our members represent organizations of all types and sizes in all economic sectors. Our mission is to help these individuals and their organizations function more efficiently and effectively in the Digital Era. Going beyond marketing/branding, sales, public relations and customer service, we primarily focus on the internal applications and implications of social and digital technologies, particularly in terms of the opportunities and challenges they create for employees, leaders, and organizational functioning. 

One of the key benefits we offer is access to foresight (about the present, future present and future trends, etc.), which allows members to gain insight into how their professional lives and organizations are likely to be changed, maybe even radically transformed, as the Digital Era progresses.

We appreciate your taking a quick minute to respond to this poll question:

If it's not visible above, you can also access the poll directly here.

Thanks so much for providing your input and participating in our ongoing rebranding efforts! We have started working on developing a new logo, color scheme, tagline, etc., and will continue to share the results. If you'd like to participate in our logo and related development activities, please send an email expressing your interest to rebranding@denovati.net.

As always, we appreciate your help.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

 

Job Search in the Digital Era

As the Digital Era continues to evolve, it is increasingly important for professionals to provide the same level of care and attention to their professional identities in cyberspace as they do to their presence and reputation in the physical world, especially when they are looking for their next career opportunity. This presentation offers guidance for: 1) Establishing and managing your digital professional brand, 2) Defining personal and professional boundaries and protecting your privacy, 3) Leveraging digital tools and technology to achieve goals, and 4) Bridging the physical and digital worlds.

I really enjoyed giving this talk to members of The Executive Network Group of Greater Chicago last week. Apparently other folks found my tips valuable as well. The deck was "hot" on SlideShare and was featured on their home page in both the LinkedIn and Facebook sections! I also got some positive feedback about it in some of the LI groups where I shared it, which is always gratifying.

Enjoy!

- Courtney

 

Job Search in the Digital Era from Social Media in Organizations (SMinOrgs)