S.M.A.R.T. Blog

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

"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?

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.

Digital Era Adaptation in 2013: A Long and Winding Road

As the Digital Era progresses, technological capabilities continue to outstrip our capacity to address the opportunities and challenges they present. We may be more willing to move forward in 2013, but we're not necessarily more able. In this post I reflect back on the changes that took place in 2012 and offer pragmatic thoughts for the year ahead.

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In my first post of 2013 - Social and Digital Tech Trends: 9 Take-Aways for YOU – I shared a number of resources addressing technology trends for 2012 and 2013 and highlighted the implications of those trends for individuals and the organizations of which they're a part.

As I was working on that post, I decided to revisit a piece I wrote a year ago entitled 12 Hopes for 2012: Enhanced Adoption of Digital Technologies, to see how many of my hopes had been realized and how much the digital landscape had changed (or not, as the case may be), in the past 12 months.

In this post I reflect back on 2012 and offer some thoughts for the year ahead. My attitude going into 2013 is much more pragmatic, but my ideals and aspirations are unchanged. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next twelve months brings.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

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Click here for an excerpted list of my 2012 hopes

Media hype and impassioned advocacy continue to mask the reality that the vast majority of working adults – particularly those in leadership positions at organizations of all types – are still sitting on the sidelines of the digital movement. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that we continue to be mired in an economic malaise that causes many people to be reluctant to take risks and/or venture into still mostly-uncharted waters.

Throughout the past year there were a number of discussions about the importance of socially (and digitally) savvy leaders, as well as a few related research studies and reports, but generally speaking there was much more talk than action. Toward the end of the year, however, I started getting a stronger sense that leaders recognized they couldn’t ignore the trends and/or put off action any longer. Interestingly, the continued integration of social media into modern life was unlikely to have influenced them much. From my perspective, in fact, I think the (perceived) dominance of social media has been one of the key factors holding them back. The rise of mobile technology and cloud computing, however, as well as growing talk about big data and analytics, has piqued their curiosity – and their appetites – and has probably been a much bigger factor in their changes of heart.

The vilification of social media has continued, but with less heat and volume, primarily because the honeymoon is effectively over. That doesn’t mean social media is going away. It just means that it’s now generally viewed more as a utility or a commodity than a novelty, much as we view other utilities like electricity and commodities like email. The fact that we no longer put Millennials/Digital Natives on super-high pedestals when it comes to new technology may be a result of this shift. We’ve come to realize that digital engagement is much more about hard work than fun, as well as something that requires a broader skill set and judgment that comes from years of experience. It’s much easier to learn the technical details of a technology tool than it is to gain wisdom and perspective…

But we’re still a long way away from “getting” what new technology is all about and realizing its potential benefits, especially in professional and organizational settings. More to the point, we haven’t made the necessary behavioral shifts. Old habits die hard – but it’s more than that. The gap between what technology can do and how humans can harness and leverage that technology continues to grow. The lack of knowledge and understanding, combined with critical deficiencies in digital competencies, is perhaps the biggest obstacle to moving forward. Without a significant shift in attitudes toward education and training, both generally and specifically in the area of digital literacy, it will become increasingly difficult to bridge that gap.

The ROI challenges continue (more on that in a future post), but they seem to have lessened as well, perhaps in part because of the shift toward viewing new technologies as utilities, and in part because of a growing recognition that the environment is too dynamic and evolving to apply specific metrics in any meaningful way. That’s not to say that return on investment is not important, but people seem to be slowing down and trying to address the question in more strategic, thoughtful, and deliberate ways. It's no longer just about "bang for the buck."

Although there hasn’t been an expressed movement toward private digital networks, there has been an increasing recognition that public platforms cannot be relied on as exclusive or even primary engagement channels, especially when it comes to internal and other private communication and collaboration. And as more software vendors and service providers adapt their offerings to include social elements, there will be an increasing number of viable options that help organizations reap the benefits of new 2.0 technologies while minimizing their risks. This shift can also be seen as an indicator that we’re maturing from an emphasis on splashy, disruptive technologies to those that can extend and enhance existing competencies.

Finally, when it comes to risk management, there doesn’t seem to have been much change on that front in 2012. Many organizations still lack adequate policies, procedures, training and guidelines to mitigate Digital Era risks.

All things considered I view 2012 as a mixed bag. There were lots of encouraging signs, especially toward the end of the year, but no real dramatic changes with respect to new technology adoption by professionals and in organizations.We are still far from the tipping point...

Although resistance to new technologies has lessened, that doesn’t mean we’ll see a dramatic increase in adoption any time soon. There are still a number of barriers to be overcome, including global economic challenges, limited resources, conflicting priorities, lack of time, relatively few success stories that leaders can relate to, and the general lack of a roadmap or established best practices. The journey ahead will continue to be long, slow and rough. But traverse it we must...

We must continue to pay attention to trends, watch industry titans, and listen to thought leaders, but we must remember that although what they do and say are extremely important, their actions and views are not necessarily representative of the world most of us live in. They are explorers, adventurers, and prospectors – and they occupy space on the leading edge of the digital movement. Most of the world, however, is comprised of people who have only just begun to think about leaving the comfort of a civilization they know to become pioneers, settlers, and immigrants in a world that seems as full of dangers as it is of possibilities.

WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) will remain a powerful motivator. No amount of reasoning, cajoling, selling, threatening or teasing can make someone change if they don’t want to. As we strive to find ways to move forward, this question must constantly be top of mind, regardless of what form it takes. It lies at the root of every challenge, every point of resistance, every criticism… and every advocate, proponent and change agent must be able to answer it – not from their own perspective, but from the perspective of others. Put another way, to help others think outside the box, champions must think inside the box.

But for me above all else, we must educate.

4 Big Barriers to Social Media Adoption in Organizations: Key Research Findings

The results of a unique and ground-breaking research study (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.

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Earlier this year Silverman Research initiated a unique and groundbreaking research study that asked people to weigh in on an important Digital Era question: What do you think are the main barriers for organisations in embracing social media practices and what ideas do you have for overcoming them? SMinOrgs quickly embraced the project, called the Social Media Garden, becoming a supporter and advocate. With over 640 participants, the study’s results are both enlightening and edifying, offering great food for thought for both leaders and laggards.

In this guest post Michael Silverman highlights the key findings of the research and provides a link to a free report that offers more details about both the results and the 2.0 research methodology that generated them. I hope you find the results and the report as valuable as I do, and that you’ll share them with others in your organizations and in your professional networks. You can also explore the Social Media Garden directly to get a sense of how the methodology works and the detailed responses people have shared. You can even participate by evaluating the responses of others and adding your own insights. The Garden will remain open indefinitely.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD 

 

Introduction

The advance of social technologies is making organisations slowly wake up to a harsh reality: the control they have enjoyed over communications for so long is diminishing and this poses some difficult challenges. The objective of this research study was to provide some helpful advice to people who are developing, or expanding, the use of social media in organizations. The study was sponsored by Unilever to help push forward the social media agenda in organizations, and to build on their efforts to “social mediatize” the way they work across the company.

The study identified four main, interrelated barriers to social media adoption in organisations:

• Lack of knowledge and understanding
• Fear
• Absence of a well-grounded business case
• Unprepared leadership

This post provides a brief overview of the research methodology and highlights the key findings. A more detailed analysis is provided in the full report, which can be accessed and downloaded for free via SlideShare. You can also obtain more background on the project from the original SMinOrgs Blog post.

 

Methodology and Participants

There is a mounting body of research on the use of social media in organizations; however, none of these studies have been conducted using social media methodologies. Capturing people’s interactions through social technology, and applying the latest text analytics, offers a new and rich source of insight.

The Garden is a collaborative environment that displays comments using data visualisation instead of a traditional list-based format. Conversations displayed in lists can quickly lead to information overload, so the Garden employs advanced statistics to produce an intuitive graphical map. In addition to allowing participants to navigate the discussion more easily, the visualisation also ensures that each participant has an equal chance of being heard. Participants’ ratings of each others’ comments are used to give prominence to the most insightful comments without the need for a moderator.

Once you enter the Garden, it works like this:

1. You begin by evaluating three comments by other participants, which you select from the existing “blooms.”
2. After evaluating these comments, you express your own agreement on five broad statements about social media (e.g., Productivity: I believe that allowing the use of external social media sites at work makes people less productive). Your responses to these statements determine the position of your own “bloom” in the Garden.
3. You then write a response to a discussion question, in this case: What do you think are the main barriers for organisations in embracing social media practices and what ideas do you have for overcoming them?
4. Through The Garden’s visualisation, you can see where you stand in relation to other participants.
5. You can then read, rate and respond to the comments of other participants – and see which comments are resonating with the community.

A short instructional video can be seen here

As an open-access study, the project was publicized via various Social Business, HR and Communications channels and communities. A convenience sampling approach was appropriate given the question asked in the study could be adequately answered by people with an interest in, or experience with, the use of social media. However, this does mean that participants are more likely to be involved with social media than the population at large.

Note: Although the Garden remains open, the analysis reported here is based on the first 644 responses.

 

Results

Responses to the five positioning statements are shown in Chart 1. The data for these questions was collected using sliders (a visual analogue scale). Each bar shows a histogram of responses, as well as the distribution curve, so that both the spread of opinion and percentage agree/disagree can be seen.

 

Chart 1
Overall responses to positioning statements (n=644)

The main points to note are that only around a quarter of participants agree that allowing the use of social media sites at work makes people less productive. There is strong consensus that leadership is more important than technology in embracing social media, yet it would appear that there is still uncertainty about exactly who should be taking the lead – only a third think HR should take the lead.

All comments were included in a text analysis from which 16 themes emerged (see Chart 2 below).

 

Chart 2
Main barriers for organisations in embracing social media practices

There is strong consensus around a lack of knowledge and understanding, as well as leadership, being the main obstacles to moving forward with social technologies. Conversely, generational differences and the issues of trust and employee abuse were not frequently mentioned.

We can add further insight to these findings by grouping participants based on the content of their written comments and then looking at how those groups score on various quantitative measures – in this case, how involved those people are with social media, how much their comments about these issues resonated with the community and the sentiment contained within those comments. This is shown in Chart 3 below.

 

Chart 3
Prevalence of barriers by overall rating, involvement with social media and sentiment 

While there were many comments about the lack of knowledge and understanding of social media, these tended to be written by people with relatively lower levels of involvement with social media. People who had the highest levels of involvement with social media were more likely to make comments about the challenges associated with creating a compelling business case. And, more importantly, comments about the business case were rated most highly by the community. Increased involvement with social media also correlated with the identification of the barrier of inadequate leadership, as well as trust, fear, communication and culture.

Looking at the analysis as a whole, the four most important of these were explored in more detail: Difficulties in creating a robust business case, lack of knowledge and understanding about social media, a failure of leadership to accept new ways of working and fear of the unknown.

 

Chart 4
Interconnectivity between the four main barriers

It must be recognized that there is overlap and interconnectivity between the barriers. For example, in the four barriers outlined above, a lack of knowledge and understanding might well be considered an antecedent of fear, leadership apprehension and business case shortcomings. Likewise, leaders can lack knowledge and understanding, which makes them overestimate risk and become dismissive of, otherwise, valid business cases. People who are looking for support in facilitating the adoption of social technologies should review these barriers and consider the relationships between them with regard to their specific purpose and organisational context. It’s important to note that none of the barriers work in isolation.

The research question also asked participants to suggest ideas about how these barriers could be overcome. This allows highly-rated practical suggestions to be identified, for example:

Conclusion

The main message to take away from this study is that there are 16 barriers that prevent organizations from embracing social technologies (see Chart 2). Although there will be lots of overlap and interaction between these barriers – 16 barriers is a lot of issues for practitioners to think about and navigate. However, all of these barriers appear to have one thing in common: a resistance to change (or put more bluntly, excuses for maintaining the status quo). With the occasional exception of resources and security issues, perhaps the only genuine barrier to embracing social technologies is leadership. The barriers identified in this study exert their influence either as causes or consequences of leadership inaction – it is, therefore, with leadership that opportunity knocks. To make strategic decisions, leaders must grasp the wider implications of these technological advances. The ability of leaders to recognise organisational and environmental shifts, and educate themselves accordingly, will help organisations deal with these sociocultural changes.

The Social Media Garden will remain open for participation and exploration. Please have a look around and add your insights to the mix. We also welcome your feedback on the Garden methodology and the results to date.

Michael Silverman is Managing Director of Silverman Research, a company specializing in applying social media principles to social research. A psychologist and organizational research specialist, he was previously Global Head of Employee Research at Unilever.

 

For more information please contact: michael.silverman@silvermanresearch.com

 

Social Media Experts II: Hiring Guidance for (Rookie) Buyers

Most people would agree that in these still-early days of social business, finding a bona fide social media expert – whether you’re trying to hire a consultant or fill an in-house role – is a dicey proposition, especially for people who aren’t very digitally sophisticated themselves. This post provides general hiring guidance for organizations looking to hire consultants, contractors, and/or employees to lead and help with social media initiatives, as well as specific guidance for interviewing prospective employees and service providers.

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Earlier this week I published Social Media Experts I: Why Organizations Need Them, which counters some of the most frequent criticisms of the notion of social media experts and articulates the need for social media expertise. In that post I noted that much of the criticism of social media experts is rooted in the fact that many of them lack true depth of knowledge and experience, which is a fair but incomplete assessment of the “social swindler” dilemma. Yes, there are many self-proclaimed experts who are more interested in making a buck by jumping on hot opportunities than developing their craft – and even greater numbers of folks who mean well but are simply naïve, unaware that their knowledge and skills are limited and their experience is narrow and shallow.

But this isn’t just a seller’s problem. Buyers – especially social media rookies – play a significant role in the proliferation and prevalence of swindlers and fakes as well, because they:

• Are often too eager to find a quick fix, a silver bullet, a simple, one-size-fits-all solution to the challenges they face.
• Tend to focus on the immediate term rather than viewing the acquisition of digital expertise as a long-term investment.
• Underestimate the importance of finding the right skill set, as well as the appropriate strategic and tactical perspectives.
• Assume that because the platforms and tools are free or low-cost, and relatively easy to use, the expertise required to leverage them effectively should also require a minimal outlay of cash.
• Think (often erroneously) that younger workers are inherently superior at digital engagement, weighting personal experiences with specific platforms and activities more heavily than general work experience and professional expertise.
• Believe that past successes alone are effective predictors of future performance.

Organizations looking to buy social technology services and/or hire in-house social media resources need to become more educated consumers and smarter buyers. With that in mind, this post offers general hiring guidance for acquiring social media expertise and specific guidance for interviewing prospective employees and service providers.

As always, I invite people to raise questions and offer additional insights and resources. More guidance on assessing and hiring social media experts would be particularly useful for social media rookies. Thanks!

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

 

Degrees of Expertise

It’s important to recognize that there is no single definition of expertise and no “one-size-fits-all” model to leveraging that expertise. The most appropriate expert for a given purpose in a particular organization will depend on factors like the organization’s:

• Strategic goals and objectives, both short term and longer term
• Industry and client characteristics
• Level  of technological sophistication
• Financial resources
• Employee skill levels and capacity

Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz provides a chart that offers a nice starting point for understanding different levels of social media expertise. I would argue that we can distinguish different levels of social media professionals the same way we might professionals in other functional areas: coordinators, analysts, managers, designers, planners, strategists, and advisors. Some organizations will need to acquire or develop individuals with expertise at all these levels, whereas others will only need some of them. For some the best solution will be to bring the expertise in house; for others it will be to use one or more service providers. And of course the right solution will change over time, as technology and an organization’s circumstances and needs continue to evolve.

 

General Approach

Generally speaking, an organization’s approach to hiring social media professionals should be the same as the approach it would use to hire professionals in other disciplines like accounting, finance, law, human resources – and yes, marketing too. That means there needs to be a clear sense of the service/job requirements, well-articulated evaluation criteria, a disciplined interview process, and reference checking.

More specifically, hiring best practices dictate that buyers should engage in the necessary due diligence to ensure:

• They avoid charlatans who claim to have expertise they don’t really possess.
• The people they hire have the social media know-how they need.
• Social media expertise is complemented by other relevant expertise, including
  • Specific functional areas (e.g., marketing, human resources, knowledge management, project management)
  • Skill sets (e.g., writing ability, community management)
  • Industries (e.g., healthcare, non-profit, consumer products, manufacturing)

This due diligence is necessary whether an organization is hiring a consultant to provide advice and counsel, an individual or firm to outsource work to, or an employee.

 

Interview Questions

It’s relatively easy to benchmark the requirements for social media and digital technology professionals of all stripes by looking at job board postings and requests for proposals, and by evaluating the digital engagement of key competitors, clients, and other relevant organizations. Once the requirements are identified, it’s relatively easy to do a preliminary screen of applicants to eliminate those who are clearly unqualified or misqualified.

What is likely to be tougher for many organizations is knowing how to further differentiate candidates during the interview process. Here are some questions buyers can ask - and what to look for in their answers:

Q: How would you define or describe social media to a novice?

• Can they describe the underlying technologies – not just the most popular platforms – in easy-to-understand terms?

Q: What are the main public social media platforms and tools? What are some I may not have heard of?

• Can they name platforms besides LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube?
• Can they identify platforms and tools that are commonly used and relevant but less obvious as social media technologies than the major platforms? See the Social Media Quotient (SMQ) Quiz I developed for examples.

Q: How would you describe (pick a platform) to me? Does that platform make sense for our organization to use? Why or why not? What platforms should we be using and why?

• Can they provide a cogent assessment of what tools are best for your organization and why?

Q: How long have you been using social media and in what capacities? What have you learned from your experiences?

• Have they been intimately involved in creating and/or managing a digital presence, either for themselves or an organization?
• Can they describe their own growth and development, recognize their increasing sophistication, and acknowledge they’re still learning?

Q: How do you respond to people who say that social media is a fad, or that it has no real business value, or that it’s not worth the risks?

• Can they provide strong evidence of the permanence of new digital technologies (beyond obvious facts like the number of Facebook users and the Facebook IPO valuation)?
• Are they able to respond to the naysayers’ arguments in terms that would make sense to them and demonstrative why enlightened self-interest can lead them to adopt and embrace new technologies?

Q: What are some of the most important risks to address when it comes to social media use? What approach(es) to risk management do you recommend?

• Can they articulate some of the key risks with respect to commercial and employment laws?
• Are they aware of the specific considerations in specific industries (e.g., financial services, health care)?
• Do they offer pragmatic solutions to manage risks that balance the interests of multiple stakeholders? 

Q: Tell me about some social media failures and mistakes (either yours or others). What can we learn from them?

• Can they quickly provide examples?
• Can they explain what happened and how the mistake reflects the risks and hazards of social media?
• Can they identify the best ways to respond to and/or prevent these problems?

Q: What knowledge, skills, and abilities do you think are most critical for a social media professional? What do you consider your greatest strength(s)?

• Do they go beyond the obvious competencies like being an enthusiastic user and enjoying cyber-interactions? For more on specific competencies, check out the lists in Digital Era Competencies: How Do You Stack Up?
• Do they identify the importance of strong technical skills like writing across multiple media, knowing html, creating/editing content in multiple media types (e.g., images, videos, podcasts), and analytics?
• Do they recognize that digital engagement can be a tedious grind – hours of boredom punctuated by moments of crisis – and not consistently fun and exciting?

Q: How would you measure social media success in our organization?

• Are they able to put common metrics (e.g., number of followers/fans, Klout scores) in proper perspective?
• Can they describe the differences between short- and long-term measures of success?
• Do they talk about alternative measures for evaluating success (e.g., relative improvements over time)

Q: What are your go-to resources for social media? What books, bloggers, and/or websites do you like best?

• Do they recognize they’re still learning and that staying current via reading (not just doing) is critical?
• Can they quickly rattle off resources in each category?

 

Putting it All Together

The specific questions buyers should use will depend on the type and level of expertise they’re looking for. Buyers don’t necessarily need to know the answers to these questions themselves to judge the responses effectively. What they should look for is how the candidate responds, the same way they would for other technical jobs they may not completely understand. In addition to the specific tips above, here are a few general things to look for:

• Tempered rather than unabashed enthusiasm for new technologies
• Recognition of how different technologies can be used to meet goals and objectives and the importance of integrating them with other initiatives
• Respect rather than disdain for social media rookies
• Understanding of the challenges to social media success (e.g., resistance to change, political issues, resource constraints)
• Lessons learned from experience (theirs or others), as well as recognition of the need and a commitment to continuous learning.

 

Related Resources

Social Media Experts I: Why Organizations Need Them

Digital Era Competencies: How Do You Stack Up? 

Measuring Social Media Sophistication: The SMQ Quiz

The New Digital Divide: Thoughts for Leaders and Laggards

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

Digital Era Competencies: How Do You Stack Up?

Do you have the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for success in the Digital Era? Regardless of the sector you work in, your professional discipline, your place in the organizational hierarchy – and to some extent your career stage – there is a core set of competencies necessary to effectively leverage new technologies to achieve your goals and objectives. This post highlights some of those competencies in four general categories – concepts, platforms, tools, and skills – in addition to identifying unique competencies for managers and leaders.

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Last week I published The New Digital Divide: Thoughts for Leaders and Laggards, which was inspired in part by my efforts to help individuals and organizations adapt to Digital Era realities and adopt new social and digital technologies and tools. At the end of that piece I highlighted the importance of leadership – including self-leadership – in bridging and crossing the divide. As new technologies increasingly permeate every aspect of our personal and professional lives, it is incumbent upon all of us to prepare ourselves to be successful in the Digital Era – not just as workers, but also as citizens and community members. No matter what our starting point may be, we must take it upon ourselves to understand new digital technologies and make educated and informed choices about which technologies we will embrace and leverage. We must also commit to learning and excelling at the competencies necessary for Digital Era success.

This post focuses on those competencies. It’s an extension of some of the ideas I shared in a presentation I gave last fall at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business entitled Social Media: Beyond Marketing, Throughout Your Career.  It also builds on the benchmarking work I did when I created a master’s degree specialization in social media and online communities for Northeastern University.

When giving career management presentations to professionals of all types, I’ve increasingly found myself highlighting the need to think about a new set of core competencies required for success in the Digital Era.  As social tools and other digital technologies become more integrated into our work lives, it has become increasingly evident that developing certain knowledge, skills and abilities is important for a wide range of professionals in multiple disciplines and at all levels (see, for example, slides 6-15 from the Ross School presentation, as well as the SMinOrgs Social Media Primer). These competencies, however, seem to get short shrift in articles and discussions about social business and enterprise 2.0 applications, which tend to emphasize the importance of cultural values like openness and transparency. As I have argued in different ways elsewhere (like this post), it’s possible to successfully leverage new digital tools and technologies even in organizations with more closed, traditional cultures. But it’s almost impossible to be successful if people don’t understand what those tools are and how they can use them. Culture may eat strategy for breakfast, but when it comes to digital technology, competencies eat culture for lunch.

 

Digital Era Competencies

When I developed this social media and online communities curriculum in early 2011, I created a core set of competencies to organize specific study topics. Many of these competencies are relevant even for folks who don’t have a professional focus on social media and community management. By their very nature, 2.0 technologies promote a DIY (do-it-yourself) approach to a variety of tasks that used to be delegated to people with specific technical skills. With more sophisticated and user-friendly tools at our disposal, we’re more autonomous and able to get work done more quickly and accurately – but only if we know what we’re doing!

It’s not the case that everyone has to embody all the competencies or master them to the same degree, but the stronger people’s working knowledge is in each of these areas, the more effectively they will be able to leverage new technologies to achieve their goals and objectives. This is as true for an organizational leader, who has to set strategic direction and allocate resources, as it is for a middle manager who wants to communicate with staff via an internal blog, a marketing or sales person who wants to identify new revenue-generating opportunities, a human resources professional who wants to interact with employees efficiently and effectively, and a new hire who needs to acclimate to a new operating and cultural environment.

Here are the main competency areas I have identified, along with brief descriptions and examples (all listed in alphabetical order) that are relevant for a wide range of professionals:

Concepts:  Ideas unique to the Digital Era, or that take on new meaning in the Digital Era.

• Anonymity
• Calls to action
• Channel
• Cloud computing
• Communities of practice
• Digital integration
• Ethics
• Gamification
• Influence
• Levels of engagement (i.e., consumer, contributor, curator, creator)
• Location-based services
• Multi-channel communication
• Network
• Online/digital community
• Privacy
• Social bookmarking
• Social commerce
• Social learning
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Transparency
• Usability
• User ratings and reviews
• User-generated content
• Virtual reality
• Web 2.0 and applications like Enterprise 2.0, Government 2.0, Health Care 2.0

Platforms: Environments in which 2.0 technologies are leveraged for specific purposes.

• Public information networks like Twitter
• Public social media sites like Flickr, Quora, Wikipedia, YouTube
• Public social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+
• Private social and digital networks, including social intranets, private digital communities, social business applications (see Ross School presentation slides 16-19 for specific examples)

Tools: Specific enabling technologies or applications of technology.

• Aggregators
• Badges
• Chatting
• Commenting
• Content management systems
• Dashboards
• Discussion forums
• Infographics
• Mashups
• Mobile apps and location based services
• Plug-ins
• Podcasts
• Portals
• RSS feeds and subscriptions
• Tag clouds and word clouds
• Videocasts and vlogs
• Web analytics and social media metrics
• Widgets
• Wikis

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The Social Media Sophistication (SMQ) Quiz
tests people’s knowledge of 2.0 platforms and tools.
Click here to learn more and take the quiz

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Skills: Capabilities unique to the Digital Era, or that take on new meaning in the Digital Era, including specific means of leveraging 2.0 technologies to achieve goals and objectives.

• Benchmarking
• Blogging: design, writing, promotion, commenting, management
• Calendar and event management
• Community management
• Content sourcing and validation
• Crowdsourcing
• Digital collaboration
• Digital design and publishing (e.g., Adobe’s Flash and InDesign)
• Digital etiquette and communication effectiveness
• File sharing and document co-creation
• Group creation and management
• Information management
• Microblogging and status updates
• Online research
• Photo editing and sharing
• Project management
• Social sharing
• Tagging and searching
• Time management
• User profile creation and management
• Video production, editing, sharing
• Web page design and coding (content, layout, keywords, links)
• Web page navigation basics
• Writing for multiple media

In addition to the above general competencies, there’s also a core set of management competencies that people in leadership positions need to effectively leverage and manage new digital technologies. These include:

• Championship and change management
• Community management, including engagement guidelines, moderation, and discipline
• Governance principles, rules, and guidelines related to digital technologies
• Human capital management applications and implications of new technologies
• Knowledge of investment concepts like COI (cost of inaction), ROE (return on engagement) and ROI (return on investment)
• Measurement and monitoring of digital activity
• Risk management, including legal and policy considerations
• Strategy and planning, including resource allocation and organizational design

And of course our definition of effective leadership itself may be changing, as articulated in another recent post: What Does it Take to be a Leader in the Digital Era?

What other competencies would you add? How about specific examples you think are worth highlighting? Any questions and concerns? As always, your thoughts are welcome.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

 

Related Resources

In addition to the related resources in the Digital Divide post, check out:

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

Social Software Implementations and Change Management: A Judokan Approach

The principles of judo should be applied to the change management efforts necessary for successful social software implementations, including enterprise 2.0 (E2.0) systems, social intranets, and digital communities. The core idea is to recognize and accept individuals and organizations as they are, rather than as they should be, and to work with current realities rather than against them. This post offers food for thought about better approaches to achieving social software goals and objectives and invites others to share ideas and examples to further the dialogue.

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Many social software and enterprise 2.0 ( E2.0) discussions focus on certain underlying cultural values that are critical to successful implementation of new technologies and tools. These include openness, empowerment, innovation, and engagement. Related discussions on the change process often emphasize the need for leaders to embrace these cultural values before the change process can begin. I agree those values are important, but I wonder if it’s in our collective best interest to emphasize them so much. Even if they’re not willing to admit it, many organizational leaders find ideas like openness and empowerment threatening, and their views on notions like engagement can range from “touchy-feely” to “a nice luxury we can’t afford.” And even if leaders themselves espouse and embrace these ideals, existing organizational cultures, structures, systems, and staff may not allow their enactment.

So what’s a change agent to do? Try to force change? Wait until the organization is really ready before moving forward? Perhaps, rather than thinking of approaching E2.0 initiatives and the cultural changes associated with them directly, we would be better served by an indirect approach.

Judo is a “soft” martial art; literally translated from the Japanese, it means “gentle way.” Founded by Kanō Jigorō in the late nineteenth century, it embodies many principles that can be applied to the change management process – not for the purpose of winning in a competitive sense, but to achieve mutual welfare and benefit. The core idea is to achieve maximum results with minimum effort by applying principles such as:

• Yielding, leverage, balance, momentum
• Open-mindedness, self-reflection,  empathy, respect
• Intense concentration, discipline, mindful flexibility

Recognizing and respecting the true starting point for both individuals and organizations, and yielding to it and working with it rather than fighting it, could significantly increase the likelihood of success. As E2.0 initiatives gain momentum, smaller successes breed larger ones. In addition, cultural values associated with social technologies can become integrated into the fabric of the organization and internalized by individuals. In other words, even if they’re not an input, they can become an outcome.

Too often, because of anticipated resistance (perceived or real), we take an adversarial approach to change. In truth, however, the best way to influence and move others may be to change ourselves first.

What do you think? Does a gentle or yielding approach to change resonate with you? Do you know of any organizations where these principles were applied successfully? Please share your thoughts, examples, and questions to create and further the dialogue.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD 

Image: Microsoft clipart

The New Digital Divide: Thoughts for Leaders and Laggards

The digital divide has increasingly become about knowledge and adoption of new technologies rather than access. Which side of the divide are you on - are you a leader or a laggard? This post offers insights into the factors contributing to the growing chasm between those who have embraced and leveraged new technologies and those who haven’t. It also offers suggestions for bridging and crossing the divide. Dialogue is encouraged and insights and questions from others are welcome.

For most of the early part of the Digital Era, we viewed the digital divide primarily in demographic terms such as geography, socioeconomic status, and age (see this Wikiepedia entry for details). But as digital technologies continue to improve, get less expensive and grow more widespread, those gaps are closing or becoming less relevant. Gaps based on knowledge and use, however, remain strong – and in fact may be getting larger. Over time it seems – and especially with respect to the adoption of social and 2.0 technologies in organizations – the digital divide is defined less by “we can’t” and more by “we don’t wanna.”

In this post I share my thoughts on six key realities that help put the current divide in perspective and offer food for thought, particularly for later adopters and technology resisters. It’s not intended to be an indictment against laggards and luddites – rather, my intent is to offer a practical assessment and generate dialogue about the challenges we face as technology increasingly outstrips our willingness and ability to embrace, adopt, and master it. To help us figure out how to move forward, I also share a few ideas on what it will take – both collectively and individually – to bridge and cross the divide.

What other realities and challenges do you see? What questions and concerns do you have? What additional ideas would you offer for bridging and crossing the divide?

As always, your comments and questions are welcome.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

PS – I’ll be following this post with one focused on how everyone can increase their digital competencies. Be sure to check back and/or subscribe to the blog (via RSS feed, email and more) to be notified as soon as it’s published.

 

Understanding the New Digital Divide

The more I speak to and work with individuals and organizations to help them adapt to Digital Era realities and adopt new social and digital technologies and tools, the more clear certain realities become. Here are some I’m reminded of on a daily basis.

It’s never been so easy to do so much with so little. The technological and financial barriers to adoption of incredibly powerful tools and platforms are generally very low. Free and low-cost options are abundant. In addition, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud-based networks reduce (or eliminate) the need for large investments in hardware. New software and hardware also dramatically increase the ease of design, drastically reduce the time to implementation, and significantly enhance long-term system flexibility.

New technologies create a “people paradox.” Although the idea is counter-intuitive to many, people are much more central to the Digital Era opportunities and challenges we face than technology. As I discuss in Social Media: From Novelty to Utility, digital technology is an enabler – a means to various ends rather than an end in and of itself. We must view these new technologies as sources of power and recognize the importance of human beings in determining the effectiveness of our ability to harness and manage that power.

The (r)evolution is bigger than we think. Many people falsely assume that new technologies only impact organizations in certain sectors (e.g., consumer goods and services), specific functional areas (e.g., marketing), and individuals in certain types of jobs and professions (e.g., IT) or at particular stages in their work lives and careers (e.g., digital natives). The reality, however, is that new technologies potentially impact every type of worker, in every sector, at every career stage and every organizational level, throughout the world.

We get in our own way. Though technological and financial barriers may be low, psychological barriers to new technology adoption are very high. These barriers are both cognitive and affective, and each type of resistance reinforces the other. The foundation of the resistance is a lack of conceptual understanding of how new technologies enable the pursuit and achievement of traditional goals (i.e., they’re new tools for doing old things (in new ways)). This lack of understanding leads to:

• Underestimating opportunities
• Overestimating challenges
• Misestimating risks

We live in the past and like to play it safe. Temperamentally, most humans have a tendency to look backward rather than forward. We concentrate more on “how things have always been done” rather than what’s possible. We’re also generally risk averse, especially when evaluating options that can produce potential gains. Given a choice, most of us prefer the “devil we know” to the “angel we haven’t met yet.”

We’re conditioned to be Luddites. Another significant barrier is that most organizations – from schools to public sector entities to for-profit enterprises – are dominated by Industrial Era thinking and operations. Ironically, even though our natural tendencies are cognitively subjective, procedurally relational, and interpersonally social and collaborative, most of us learn and work in environments that emphasize objectivity, linearity, and (isolated) individualism.

Bridging and Crossing the Divide

To me, leadership is the key to bridging and crossing the new digital divide. And it can occur in multiple forms:

Thought leaders and champions need to not just trumpet the “cool” aspects of new technologies, but also their practical benefits. They need to frame their arguments from the perspective of what people need to hear rather than what they want to say. And they themselves need to think bigger and more broadly about the phenomena they’re touting.

Formal organizational leaders need to educate themselves about new technologies, their applications, and their implications. Doing so will enable them to provide the strategic direction and the capacity – especially in terms of human capital – their organizations need to move forward. It will also enable them to adapt their leadership styles to enhance their ability to be successful in new operating environments.

Educators at all levels – and especially in higher education – also need to educate themselves about new technologies and their applications and implications. They need to then use their new-found knowledge and understanding to update their curricula and pedagogical practices, as well as their research questions and methods.

Informal leaders who understand new technologies and their benefits and challenges can help others make the necessary transitions by being champions and cheerleaders, leading by example, and offering guidance, instruction, and encouragement.

Self-leadership means we will all take it upon ourselves to understand new digital technologies and make educated and informed choices about which technologies we will embrace and leverage. We’ll also commit to learning and excelling at the competencies necessary for Digital Era success.

 

Related Resources

10 Digital Era Truths

12 Hopes for 2012: Enhanced Adoption of Digital Technologies

The Social Media ROI Challenge: What it Really Means (and 7 Related Faulty Assumptions)

Social Media: From Novelty to Utility

Social Media Engagement: 7 Rules for Working Smart, not Just Hard

Social Media Engagement: 5 Guiding Principles

Social Media: Coping with Time and Information Management Realities

What Does it Take to be a Leader in the Digital Era?

Digital Era Leadership: The Role of Business Schools

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