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

 

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. 

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

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)

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

At the risk of inspiring unresolvable semantic discussions, this post addresses seven Digital Era terms that should probably be replaced and/or removed from the lexicon and suggests both existing and new alternative terminology to use in their place. What other proposed changes would you make?

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I generally try to avoid semantic arguments. Having clarity about the meaning of various terms, especially those related to emerging technologies and trends, is no doubt important. But when the terms and their meanings are evolving, discussions about them can devolve into an infinite loop of opinions and perceptions that produce neither clarity nor consensus.

That said, there are some uses and misuses that have been bothering me for a while now. And since we’ve reached a reasonable level of maturity and stability in a number of areas, I think it’s time to give serious consideration to making semantic changes that enable us to use more accurate, logical and fact-based language to refer to elements of the world we live in – and to stop using passé terms unnecessarily.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on my proposals, as well as any additional recommendations you may have. Thanks!

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

 

Going from the general to the specific...

Social Media. Wikipedia lays out a decent denotation of the term, but the connotation still varies widely. And in my experience, most people equate the term with the public platforms, assuming the social media universe is solely comprised of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and their ilk. That assumption not only misses the point that it's the technologies underlying those platforms that constitute social media, it also (more importantly) leads them to draw erroneous conclusions about the potential that social media holds for both them and the organizations of which they're a part. Plus, for laggards and resisters, the term evokes a negative visceral reaction that's hard to overcome.

I'm not proposing we do away with the term altogether, I'm proposing that we be more precise about when and how we use it. When referring to public platforms, it's the appropriate term. But when we're talking about the technology more broadly, it's better to use an alternative...

Alternative 1: I prefer the terms social technology or social technologies, which are still accurate descriptors but less loaded.

Alternative 2: A more encompassing alternative is social and digital technologies, which encompasses not just software, but also hardware (i.e., mobile devices) and services (i.e., cloud-based computing).

Alternative 3: My personal favorite new term is SMAC, which stands for social (software), mobile (devices and access), (data) analytics, and cloud (computing) and reflects the convergence among these technology movements. Individually, each movement is incredibly powerful. Together, they have the potential to create dramatic transformations. Over time, they will be virtually indistinguishable.

 

Anything 2.0. A few years ago it was important to append 2.0 to various terms (e.g., Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Government 2.0) to reflect the fact that social media was causing a shift from static internet-based sites with one-directional communication to collaborative sites characterized by multi-directional communication. As social technologies have become more integrated into digital platforms of all types, as well as the organizations that leverage those platforms, it's probably no longer necessary to add the 2.0 qualifier.

 

Social Business, Social Enterprise, Social Learning. All three terms accurately convey their intent; unfortunately they all also have distinct meanings that have no specific connections to social technologies. Both Social Business and Social Enterprise, for example, along with Social Entrepreneurship, are used to refer to for-profit businesses that have charitable or socially-oriented missions. And Social Learning is most strongly connected to social learning theory, which was developed in the late 1970s.

We could argue that we need to find better language to reflect the phenomena these terms refer to, but I might suggest that we should simply stop trying to use them. Over time, as social and digital technologies become more integrated into all aspects of organizational life, the “social” qualifier will become redundant and unnecessary. This applies not only to the terms above but others like social intranet and social recognition.

 

The New Normal. Although it will continue to evolve, the Digital Era is fully established. Even resisters and laggards are impacted by enhanced forms of communication and collaboration every day, often without even being aware of it. So referring to the realities created by social and digital technologies as a "brave new world" or "the new normal" implies a novelty that no longer exists. It is, simply put, just normal.

 

In Real Life (IRL). This term originated to distinguish earth-based interactions from cyber interactions. And even though resisters continue to use the term to disparage digital communication as being inferior to face-to-face communication, most folks have come to realize that it’s all real life! More importantly, rather than creating a false dichotomy between the different ways in which we know and interact with one another, we are better served by figuring out how to integrate them in the most efficient and effective ways to achieve our goals and objectives. This term should go, but we probably still need something to distinguish the virtual and physical worlds. I’ve been experimenting with using earthspace. Yeah, I know - it's kind of awkward. I’d love to hear alternatives…

 

Microblogging. This term is still technically accurate, but it now seems antiquated and kind of clunky, perhaps because the activity has morphed into wall posts, shares, and status updates on a variety of platforms both public (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, G+) and private (e.g., Yammer, SharePoint and a host of social intranet products). And because Twitter and Tumblr have emerged as the dominant microblogging platforms, people tend to refer to those sites and their related activities by their brand names rather than using generic terms. Basically, no one ever says, “I’m going to microblog about that” or “I’m going to post that to my microblog.” Now that I think about it, did they ever?

Note: One could argue we should also get rid of the term “blog,” which no longer literally reflects what they are or do, but we seem to have good consensus on the connotation so it’s likely to stick around.

 

Smartphone. People who own these devices obviously use them for much more than talking on the phone. More importantly, their other uses are likely to be much more significant. Given that, it's more accurate to refer to them as mobile communication devices or a mobile computing devices – or MCDs for short. Yes, people may look at you funny and make fun of you at first, but eventually they'll agree the term is more logical and even a bit more elegant. It's kind of got a Star Trek vibe... :)

Adopting  the term MCD can also bring an end to the silly-sounding term phablet, which according to the Wikipedia definition is a “portmanteau of the words phone and tablet.” If distinguishing based on size is important (which I’m not sure it is), perhaps we can adopt mini-MCD, midi-MCD, and maxi-MCD (which would include both full-sized tablets and hybrid devices like Microsoft’s Surface.

 

What other changes would you suggest?

Increasing Social Engagement: A Little Recognition Goes a Long Way

You know that new social intranet or knowledge-sharing platform you built, beta-tested and launched with great fanfare? It WILL increase your team’s collaboration and productivity, but you need to provide the right level and type of recognition.

This is the first guest post from Richard D’Ambrosio, a trusted executive communications advisor and member of our Global Leadership Team. The value of having one’s contributions acknowledged is underscored by recent developments in the area of social recognition, both as stand-alone software systems (e.g., You Earned It, MTM’s Carousel, and Small Improvements) and integrated into larger applications (e.g., NewsGator’s Spotlight module for Microsoft SharePoint). I expect we’ll see even more synergy among various social engagement movements and tools over time.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

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Neuroscientists are just now beginning to grasp the full ebb and flow of chemical reactions in our brains, and how that flow triggers our actions.

As a professional communicator for 20+ years, I’ve worked on projects from national sales conferences, to small team meetings, to being the community manager for online knowledge sharing platforms. What I’ve found, and what many sophisticated neuroscience researchers are proving, is that a simple system of recognition can go a long way to triggering the neurons that incent the right social media behaviors.

This holds tremendous potential for knowledge sharing and other objectives sought by social media platform managers. According to a recent survey from the IBM Institute for Business Value, almost two-thirds of companies are applying social capabilities internally “to find information and collaborate more effectively.” Eighty percent expect to do so within the next two years.

However, these firms may not maximize their investment and obtain the results they need if they don’t fully comprehend the dynamics of popular social media sites like Facebook, where one out of three adult Internet users are sharing some kind of content.

 

A Thank-You Can Go a Long, Long Way

When I helped launch a knowledge sharing platform in a prior role, we worked in advance with people leaders to identify key objectives our sales team was already working towards. We chose a handful of core expertise needs and built some offline activities supplemented by an online center of excellence for each of the initiatives.

We uploaded job aids and other critical sales tools to these sites. More importantly, we seeded the centers with comments from some of the sales leaders and individual contributors working on the project. Then, we actively and very publicly recognized anyone who contributed. Our SVP also chimed in online and off, personally thanking subject matter experts and sales people who were joining the conversation.

The reaction was phenomenal. The sales team and others ramped up their contributions as they saw their peers receiving positive feedback. The engagement far exceeded previous online usage, and unlike the launch of the tool two years earlier, we didn’t have to hold raffles or provide financial incentives to get our teams to contribute.

In fact, we didn’t spend a dime outside the project buildout. Participation was driven solely by personal leader recognition, both online in the tool, as well as at town halls, staff meetings and other offline activities. We also saw a correlation between contributions and peer-to-peer informal recognition.

 

The Gamification of Knowledge Sharing

In an article published last year in the MIT Sloan Management Review, Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Center for Digital Business, spoke about an experience he had with TCS, Tata Consultancy Services, the Indian software development company.

TCS was using a tool where any of its 200,000 employees around the world could ask questions to and get answers from the entire enterprise. Employees were rated and recognized for their participation. After a while, the company did some analysis of the discussions being shared and who was participating. According to McAfee, they noticed that some people were offering answers and expertise not directly relevant to their role.

McAfee believes that “some combination of the peer recognition and being on top of the leader board, that kind of status, was so valuable to them that they were doing stuff that was exactly outside their job description.” He goes on: these employees were “doing it for the joy, doing it for the peer recognition, doing it because of the game-ification. Making visible how good you are.“

 

Put These Tactics on Your Checklist

I have witnessed this dynamic over and over again throughout my career as a communications professional and consultant.  But getting there isn’t easy. There are still a number of core activities that need to be in place to create a rich environment that will kick off and reward contribution.

I strongly advocate a number of strategies including:

• ensuring subject matter experts are readily accessible through all internal social tools and are rewarded for responding to questions and requests in a timely manner
• targeting and incenting experienced high-performers and leaders for contributions
• leveraging multimedia wherever and whenever possible
• directly demonstrating the link between business goal achievements and social knowledge sharing through prominent company-wide communications and events

There are a number of other very productive supporting strategies that require buy-in from internal business partners that also could trigger the neurons that initiate and sustain the right behaviors. Key among them is incorporating knowledge sharing in annual performance goals and reviews. McAfee suggests “enterprise-level collegiality” make up to 10-15% of performance reviews.

Unfortunately, I’ve found changing performance management programs, which speak to the broader culture of an organization, are much harder to come by. More on that in another post…

 

Richard D’Ambrosio is a writer and consultant with 20+ years of experience in the media and with large and mid-size corporations. His passion is for helping organizations achieve their goals, through leadership development and effective communications. Richard believes that social media is rapidly changing the way institutions organize workflows, share knowledge and develop talent, and is collaborating with SMinOrgs to advance strategies and tactics that will assist individuals and organizations in reaching their full potential. You can read more of musings on his Narrativity blog.

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.

Creating a Digital Era Brand: 13 Key Factors… and a Request

Creating a new brand identity in the Digital Era poses a unique set of challenges – especially for a technology-oriented organization. This post suggests 13 key factors that should be considered to maximize the likelihood of success. And in true 2.0 fashion, we invite folks to participate in a survey to help us decide which of four new brand options we’ve identified is the best one for us to use going forward.

 

Over the past 12-18 months it has become increasingly obvious that the Social Media in Organizations Community (SMinOrgs) needs a new name/brand (we explain why at the end of the post). The first order of business for 2013, therefore, has been to create a new identity. Working with our Global Leadership Team and staff, I have embarked on an intensive exploration and investigation that has not only produced four viable options, but has taught us a lot about the most important factors to consider when establishing a new brand in the Digital Era. These factors are primarily relevant for organizations, but they can also be used by individuals who want to create valuable brand identities for themselves on multiple digital platforms.

This post provides a checklist of the 13 factors we used to identify four options for our new brand. In addition to sharing those factors, we’d love input from a wide range of folks as to which of the four options is best. After all, this is the 2.0 Era, and we know better than to try to finalize our new brand without soliciting input from “the crowd.” To that end, we greatly appreciate your participating in and sharing this brief survey.

The survey will be open until February 15, 2013, and we’ll publish the results in a future blog post. In the meantime, if you have other recommendations for factors to consider when (re)creating a Digital Era brand, we’d love to hear them. Thanks!

Next on the agenda, creating a logo and a tagline…

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

 

A Digital Era Brand Should…

Based on our experience with the SMinOrgs brand over the past 3+ years, lessons learned from the (re)branding efforts of others (e.g., Netflix and the Qwikster debacle), our internal discussions and fairly exhaustive research, we developed a list of important criteria for creating and selecting our new brand name. Specifically, a Digital Era brand should…

1. Reflect the essence(s) of what an organization and its product/services are all about rather than being a literal description
2. Maintain relevance over time, even as the entity and its focus change
3. Be unique but not confusing
4. Have an easily explainable meaning (but that meaning doesn't need to be immediately obvious)
5. Invoke positive emotions (or at least not invoke negative ones)
6. Not be used in another context with a meaning that's contrary to the organization’s objectives
7. Not appear too Anglicized or American (especially true if the target market is global)
8. Be short - fewer than 10 characters
9. Not have to rely on CamelCase to make the meaning/name clear; look equally acceptable in any capitalization combination
10. Be relatively easy to pronounce (or at least the mispronunciations should be bearable!)
11. Not end in an S (creates too many problems when trying to write in the possessive)
12. Be available as a url (.com, .net, and .org), Twitter handle, etc. (and be sure to grab the "digital real estate" you might need asap, so no one else can take it)
13. Be trademark-able

 

Why We Need a New Brand Identity

SMinOrgs was started as a LinkedIn group called Social Media in HR in May 2009. By the end of that year, the name had changed to Social Media in Organizations to reflect the growing community’s broader focus on all functional areas.

With the rise of mobile technology and cloud computing, as well as the increasing importance of analytics, our focus has continued to evolve and expand. Although the applications and implications of social software are still critically important, its impact cannot be considered in isolation from other major technological changes. We therefore need a new brand identity that better reflects our focus on social software and mobile devices and cloud-based computing and analytics, both individually and with respect to their interplay.

The human capital/people implications of technological change have been and will remain paramount, but in addition to classic HR considerations, our perspective encompasses interest areas such as communication and collaboration, knowledge management and innovation, training and development, organizational change, and individual career management. Woven throughout these emphases is a focus on leadership, both formal and informal, at all organizational levels – and even from organizations themselves. The notion of what it means to be a leader in the Digital Era is ever-present…

Here’s a working description that reflects our current focus:

We are a global, multi-disciplinary professional community whose 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. Focal topics include risk management, strategy, governance, organizational structure and design, employee engagement, and all aspects of human capital management including job design, talent management, compensation, training and development, internal communication and collaboration, etc.  In addition to addressing changes that have immediate and direct impacts on organizations, we also explore general social and economic trends that have longer-term or indirect impacts.

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 have idnetified four possible new brand names that generally reflect this focus and - perhaps more importantly - meet the 13 criteria listed above. We’d love to know what other people think of them and will use that input to make a final decision. To that end, we hope you'll participate in and share this brief survey, which will be open until February 15, 2013. Thanks!