Social Media in Organizations (SMinOrgs) Community

The Social Media Garden: A 2.0 Organizational Research Study

"What do you think are the main barriers for organizations in embracing social media practices and what ideas do you have for overcoming them?" This is the question at the heart of a public research study being conducted by Silverman Research, which uses a social research methodology rather than a survey format to capture and develop collective insights on important questions. Everyone is able to view and evaluate the responses from others, in addition to contributing their own perspective.

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As the Founder of the Social Media in Organizations (SMinOrgs) Community, I am pleased to offer my support to this project. I learned about the study when Michael Silverman posted an invitation to participate in the SMinOrgs LI group. Obviously, the question is one that is near and dear to my heart, but I am also very impressed with and intrigued by his approach to building a dataset and representing the results.

I invite everyone to enter the Garden, take a stroll through the responses shared by others, and plant a bloom of your own!

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

 

Study Overview and Invitation

The Social Media Garden is an open-access research project that has been designed to generate insight about the barriers organisations face in adopting social media practices – and solutions to overcome them. This new approach to online research eliminates unmanageable lists of comments and uses data visualizations to help participants navigate the conversation and develop their understanding. Algorithms then rapidly filter insightful comments based on input from other participants. Here’s a screenshot of a typical page:

 

Of course, there is already 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. When one considers the opportunities provided by social technologies to share information, develop ideas and generate insight, I find it immensely frustrating that so much social research is still conducted using surveys. For all the big consultancies, research agencies and academics espousing the benefits of social media, it’s unfortunate that they have stuck to a standard survey approach. This is one the few research studies on social media in organizations to employ a social media approach. We therefore expect to produce many new insights that would not be possible using traditional survey approaches.

The study is being sponsored by Unilever to help push forward the social media agenda in organizations, and to build on their efforts to “social mediatize” employee research across the company (see below for more information on the methodology). The Garden will be open throughout February 2012 and has already received over 450 participants. A full report of the overall research findings will be publically available towards the end of March 2012. All participants will be emailed a copy of the report (containing a combined text, sentiment and statistical analysis), which will also be available on the Social Media Garden website. Please click here to enter the garden and plant your bloom.

A leaderboard of the top authors will be posted in the Garden towards the end of the project. Currently, the top author is ‘philwoodford,’ who wrote:

The two biggest factors preventing organisations embracing social media are: (1) Difficulty in measuring return on investment (2) Fear of loss of control Using social media successfully requires an investment of time and human resources. If organisations cannot see or quantify an immediate and obvious return, they get nervous. Social media is profoundly democratic. This takes power away from managers, marketers, HR professionals and others within the organisation that might be expected to sponsor its growth. Both of these factors will become less of an issue with each passing year, as social media becomes more and more embedded in the fabric of business and society as a whole. Business owners and managers who are resistant to change probably won't be convinced and there's little that can be done to shape their attitudes. The world will simply change around them.

 

Methodological Background

Despite their prevalence, surveys are riddled with problems. The most serious of which, and the one that is most often overlooked, is that they are incredibly boring for participants and consistently fail to provide participants with a compelling and engaging experience. The fact that participants complete surveys in isolation provides people with a very solitary experience. Worse still, a valuable opportunity is missed to capture the insight that comes from measuring what people think of other participants’ comments. This is where surveys really fall down. If participants knew their comment would be available for others evaluate, they would not only be more likely to write a response, they would also be more likely to write a thoughtful and considered response.

In addition, if participants are able to evaluate others’ comments, it becomes possible to identify the authentic voice of that community and see what themes are achieving consensus. Text analysis software is great, but we often forget that we have an even more powerful text analysis tool than any computer – the combined wisdom of our brains. I like to think of this as a form of crowd-sourced text analysis.

However, linear lists of comments that are used in traditional discussion forums and message boards are difficult to navigate and soon become unmanageable as the number of participants increases. This means that many comments never get read. Coupled with the widespread use of over-simplistic binary thumbs-up or five-star ratings, lists favor early birds or those with extreme views and conceal the real diversity of opinion.

Unilever was one of the first organizations to employ this approach internally, using a pre-cursor to the Social Media Garden called “Opinion Space” (see screen shot below). This project engaged Unilever’s 1,800-strong international assignee employees in providing feedback and suggestions to improve its policies for this community. The project won two HR industry awards and has led to the adoption of this approach to employee research and collaboration in different parts of the business.

 

In addition to providing new insight into the use of social media in organizations, we also hope that the Social Media Garden will raise awareness of new ways of generating insight and facilitating mass collaboration.

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

 

LinkedIn “Company” Pages: An (Undervalued) Gem for Organizations of All Types

This post articulates the primary reasons why organizations of all types and sizes should establish and manage their Company Pages (organizational profiles) on LinkedIn. It provides a three-phase approach to creating Company Pages and offers examples of existing Company Pages for reference. It also includes the results of a recent poll (N=451) on people’s preferences for engaging with organizations in which they have a professional interest.

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LinkedIn’s “company” management capability is an amazingly powerful and surprisingly underutilized feature of the platform. Other than the Careers functionality, the feature is free. And even though LinkedIn (LI) uses the term “company,” it’s a feature that can be used by organizations of all types, as well as organizations of any size (including solopreneurs).

Among other things, LI Company Pages enable organizations to:

• Connect all employees on LI under a single employer identity
• Promote the organizational brand, products and services
  • This is valuable even if the organization is not a for-profit entity
  • Example: SMinOrgs’s products/services have received almost 12,000 impressions this year – that’s an invaluable return for a few hours of work
• Communicate the employment brand and enhance recruiting efforts
• Facilitate business development and other efforts to garner support from outside parties
• Provide an easier mechanism for externally facing employees to be found via LI
• Connect LI users to their website and other internet presences

LinkedIn Company Pages should be viewed as a complement to an organization’s overall internet presence rather than a substitute for other platforms or websites. Although it’s one of the best ways to engage with people professionally, it’s not the only means by which people access information and connect with relevant individuals (see the poll results below to learn more).

As more people join and visit LI regularly, however, having a robust organizational profile will become increasingly important.  Given how little investment it takes to establish and manage a Company Page (no money, and very little time), there’s really no excuse for not having one.

This post is divided into the following sections:

• Establishing a Company Page in Three Phases
• Company Page Examples
• Preferences for Engaging with Organizations: Poll Results

As always, I welcome comments and questions, as well as additional tips and suggestions.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

 

Click here to access additional
LinkedIn Resources from SMinOrgs

 

Establishing a Company Page in Three Phases

Establishing a Company Page doesn’t require any special training or sophisticated technical skills. Anyone with a basic ability to navigate the web, along with decent writing/editing and typing skills (most of which is copying and pasting), can do it. LinkedIn has made the process extremely simple and straight forward.

In spite of the simplicity of doing so, people offer lots of reasons (excuses) for not having established their Company Pages yet. Some people are intimidated by experimenting with new things, whereas others feel they don’t have time. With folks like this in mind, I offer recommendations that enable the development of organizational profiles in stages, from Basic to Advanced. Many organizations may choose to stop at the basic level, and others will continue to progress. The decision as to which level of sophistication is “good enough” should be driven by an organization’s goals and objectives and the relevance of LI in achieving them.

Note: the guidance below does not expressly address the Careers feature on Company Pages for two reasons. First, it’s not a feature I’ve worked with, so I don’t feel qualified to address it. Secondly, using the feature requires an organization to either have a paid LI account or pay to post positions, so unlike the other features, it can’t be leveraged for free.

Click here to learn more about Company Pages
from LinkedIn's Learning Center

 

Visit LinkedIn’s FAQ for Company Pages
for answers to specific questions

 

Phase I: Basic

A basic profile can be created in less than 30 minutes. On your LI home page, hover over “Companies” on the top bar and then click on “Search Companies” from the drop-down menu. In the upper-right corner of that page, click on the “Add a Company” link. LinkedIn will guide you in the process from there.

Your profile will include a brief description (copied from your website or other promotional materials), a logo, specialties, and some basic demographic information. If your organization has a blog, you can include the RSS feed link as well.

Once the profile is established, be sure to designate multiple administrators for the Company Page. Not only will this make maintenance easier, but it will also provide for a seamless transition when an employee with administrator status leaves.

Finally, assuming you have employees who are already on LI, ask them to update their individual profiles to link them to the official Company Page. Here are some instructions from LI on how to do that.

Note: large organizations will have to devise a scheme for coordinating multiple identities. For example, there are at least at least 6 Company Pages for the University of Chicago, two of which – the Hospital and Medical Center – appear to be the same entity.

 

Phase II: Intermediate

The next big phase in fleshing out your Company Page is to add descriptions of your products/services. Depending on how many products/services your organization has, and how much descriptive material already exists, this effort could take as little as an hour. In no case should it take more than a day. A half a day is probably a reasonable amount of time to block off.

In addition to providing basic descriptions and key features for each product/service, you can

• Add images and urls for more information
• Identify specific employees for people to contact
• Create brief promotions (which will rotate on the overview page)
• Include a link to a YouTube video
• Incorporate a disclaimer

Once you’re satisfied with the product/service descriptions you create, you can seek recommendations for them from key clients and other stakeholders. LI facilitates this by creating a boilerplate message that administrators can send for specific products/services to their LI connections. You can also create a general request that includes links to all products/services and send that out via email as well as through LI. You can also add a request to your website, with links to specific profile pages (here’s an example).

Finally, you can request that people follow your organization by having employees share the Company Page on their individual profiles as status updates and with specific individuals from their networks. Although you don’t want to share the Company Page as a Discussion Item in LI groups, because that can strike people as spammy, you can add a link/description under the Promotions tab of relevant groups. Given that Promotions don’t get pushed out to people as part of the group updates, however, I am not sure it’s worth the effort.

 

Phase III: Advanced

In addition to creating pages for each product/service your organization offers, you can also customize the overview page, including:

• Creating multiple versions of the page for different audiences and/or market segments
• Adding up to three linkable banners that will rotate through the page
• Linking to a YouTube video
• Featuring specific products/services
• Incorporating a general disclaimer

If you have the staff who are willing and able to provide regular status updates for the organization, you can activate that feature as well. As with updates on individual profiles, you should probably share no more than one update per day – far less than you would on Twitter and maybe even Facebook.

Finally, you can promote your organization and/or specific products/services by initiating a targeted LI advertising campaign.

 

Company Page Examples

Here are some examples of how organizations of all sizes and types are currently leveraging the Company Page feature. For each I’ve indicated which of the three sophistication categories I would put them in. As you can see, many organizations have still not taken full advantage of what LI has to offer, even though they have many employees on LI and many, many followers. What are they waiting for…?

Publicly-held companies

• Allstate (advanced)
• General Motors (intermediate)
• IBM (advanced)
• LinkedIn (advanced)
• Nestle (basic)

Public sector organizations

• City of New York (basic)
• City of Seattle (none!)
• Council of the European Union (basic)
• State of California (none?)
• U.S. Department of State (basic)

Academic Institutions

• Booth School of Business (intermediate)
• INSEAD (advanced)
• University of Virginia (basic)

Small, for-profit organizations

• Renaissance Strategic Solutions (my consultancy) (intermediate)
• Team Clock Institute (intermediate)

Healthcare organizations

• Akron Children’s Hospital (intermediate)
• Mayo Clinic (intermediate)
• Medical College of Wisconsin (basic)

Non-profit organizations

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (advanced)
• Social Media in Organizations (SMinOrgs) Community (I am the founder) (intermediate)
• The Night Ministry (basic)

 

Preferences for Engaging with Organizations: Poll Results

One of the catalysts for this post was LI’s recent announcement that they were adding a utility to enable companies to provide status updates, similar to individual status updates. As someone who focuses on non-consumer applications of social media, I thought this was a great development, and I was excited about being able to share updates via my LI Company Pages rather than my Facebook fan pages (which, as it turns out, has been far more effective based on impression and engagement statistics).

I was curious to know if other people shared my enthusiasm, so I created a LI poll – and a comparable Constant Contact (CC) version – to get some input. The 415 LI and 36 CC responses were very similar, and generally corroborated my perception that LI is preferable to both Facebook and Twitter for professional engagement. Perhaps more importantly, though, both the numbers and the comments reinforce the fact that people will use multiple channels, methods, and platforms (including face-to-face!) for conducting research on, reaching out to, and interacting with organizations and their representatives.

Click here to access the Constant Contact poll results

Click here or on the image below for details on the LI poll results

10 Digital Era Truths

This post reminds readers – especially technology hold outs – of Digital Era truths that individuals, organizations, and communities must accept and (eventually) embrace.

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Like many active technology users, I take its integration into my life for granted. But I’m often reminded that most people do not embrace it the same way I do. In particular, many people still love to disparage social media, especially social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. I regularly hear disdainful comments about what vast wastelands they are, full of vapid, narcissitic oversharing about what people had for lunch and other banalities. Like many prejudicial statements, the criticisms contain an element of truth, but that doesn’t mean they accurately reflect reality…

I recently wrote a blog post about the vital role new technologies played in the planning and execution of my summer vacation, a road trip in the American West. This post builds on that one by recasting my reflections in broader terms. The following Digital Era truths extend beyond tourism and are important not just for individuals and organizations, but also the communities in which they’re embedded.

TRUTH 1: Interacting via social media and other digital technologies is not a substitute for “real life” interactions. In the Digital Era, it IS real life.

TRUTH 2: Digital communication should not be viewed as an adjunct to other communication forms; rather, it should be fully integrated into the ways in which we connect with others.  We should rely on ALL forms of media – both traditional and new – to achieve our goals and enhance our experiences.  

TRUTH 3: Time spent in cyberspace is no more a waste than time spent on any other activity that brings people pleasure and enriches their lives. The value of the time spent should be determined based on a person’s own goals and objectives – and not the judgments of others.

TRUTH 4: At a fundamental level, digital technology doesn’t dramatically alter what we do, but it does give us “new tools for doing old things” (the SMinOrgs tagline). The idea isn’t to use the new tools just because they’re shinier and everyone else seems to love them. We should use them because they allow us to accomplish things in better ways by enabling us to access a wider range of (more current) information, minimizing bulk, reducing paper production, etc.

TRUTH 5: Digital technology can increase both efficiency and effectiveness. Most activities can be planned and executed via traditional means, but doing so can often take more time and limit flexibility. Traditional approaches can also inhibit the serendipity, immediacy and intimacy of our experiences.

TRUTH 6: Its benefits notwithstanding, we shouldn’t become overly reliant on digital technology and lose our ability to rely on more traditional media - sometimes you gotta kick it old school. Flexibility and adaptability may be better markers of a Digital Era sophisticate than someone who voraciously consumes new technologies.

TRUTH 7: The more we all engage with digital technologies, the more we all benefit. Technology isn't a cure-all and there are certainly challenges, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. In addition to pursuing opportunities, we must also address challenges. Costs and risks are inevitable, but they shouldn't be used as an excuse to avoid progress.

TRUTH 8: The over-reliance on the distinction between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” is counter-productive. Fluency is a state of mind, not a factor of chronological age. Anyone can be as digitally sophisticated as they choose to be.

TRUTH 9: The idea that digital technology levels the playing field is not a myth. Individuals and organizations of all sizes and types can benefit from enhancing their digital profiles. The biggest barriers to entry are self imposed.

TRUTH 10: The ability to leverage new technologies both strategically and tactically is important for organizations of all types, not just for-profit or consumer-oriented enterprises. These technologies have powerful implications for economies and communities of all sizes throughout the world. In addition to direct beneficiaries (e.g., commercial enterprises), we have to remember the indirect beneficiaries (e.g., governments, citizens) as well. Leadership is critical, not just from individual organizations, but from Chambers of Commerce and government too. We need to remember the interconnectedness of our communities and look at opportunities from a holistic perspective.

What would you add to this list?

As always, I welcome your comments and questions.

-  Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

 

For more on Digital Era leadership, see:

Digital Era Leadership: The Role of Business Schools

Digital Era Leadership: Opportunities for Cities, States, and Regions

 

Digital Era Leadership: Opportunities for Cities, States, and Regions

What does it mean for a city (or state or region) to be a Digital Era leader? This post provides ideas to stimulate thinking and discussion by promoting a broader focus than the technologies themselves, specific applications like consumer marketing, high-tech start-ups, and the digital sector. Advocating a more strategic and holistic approach, it introduces other ways in which Digital Era leadership can and will manifest itself in the decades to come, and invites others to share their thoughts (as well as examples) on how to turn possibilities into realities.

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A few weeks ago I sent an opinion piece to Crain’s Chicago Business (CCB). I’d like to share the ideas in that piece with a larger group to stimulate thinking and discussion about what it means for a city (or state or region) to be a leader in the Digital Era. I’m particularly interested in identifying examples of these ideas in practice, and am especially keen on learning about communities that are already taking a more strategic and holistic approach to defining Digital Era leadership.

 

New York: Roadmap for a Digital City

Before I move on to what I sent to CCB, let me say a few words about a recent report, Roadmap for the Digital City: Achieving New York City’s Digital Future, which was published by the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. Obviously, given the piece I had submitted to Crain’s, I was quite curious about the report and New York’s initiative when I read about it in this TechCrunch article. Had I been scooped? Not exactly… Did New York beat Chicago to the punch? No, not really…

Aiming to become “the world’s top-ranked Digital City” is certainly an ambitious undertaking. New York deserves credit for its commitment and for appointing Rachel Sterne as its Chief Digital Officer. But as broad as their scope is (addressing access, open government, engagement, and industry), it’s still fairly narrow. Specifically, there’s a heavy emphasis on technological infrastructure, as well as on enhancing the ways in which the city engages with its inhabitants and promotes open government. And with respect to industry, it appears the focus is primarily on the digital sector. Though all those things are important for Digital Era leadership, the reach and potential impact of new technologies on people, organizations, society and the economy are much greater than that.

 

Thinking Bigger

As the Founder of the Social Media in Organizations (SMinOrgs) Community, I’ve spent the last two years trying to help people understand the applications and implications of social media beyond marketing, sales, public relations and customer service, particularly in the business-to-consumer context. Targeting organizational leaders who are social media rookies, for example, the Social Media Primer I’ve been developing provides a conceptual foundation, helps put Digital Era realities in perspective, and offers strategic guidance.  Through blog posts and white papers, I’ve written extensively about human capital management issues and  legal concerns (see this post, for example, and this one). And most recently, I’ve started addressing the need for social media expertise and the ways in which education and training can help develop that expertise (here and here).

My own thinking has evolved beyond social media, to focus on digital technologies more broadly, for several reasons.

The term “social media” creates a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. Even though the denotation is clear (see Part 1 of the Social Media Primer, updated here), connotations vary widely. Many people (including so-called experts) treat distinct terms (e.g., social media and social networking) as if they’re synonymous, confound applications of the technology (e.g., marketing) with the technology itself, and erroneously assume that the most well-known platforms (e.g., LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook) comprise the entire social media universe.

The rise of mobile technology has been dramatic. Handheld mobile devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets, readers) and related applications have been more successful and evolved much more quickly than many people anticipated. Even though there’s tremendous overlap between this rise and the increase in 2.0 technologies, mobile devices and their applications themselves don’t meet the literal definition of social media.

Cloud computing continues to expand. This is another independent but related phenomenon that is likely to become a large and permanent part of the digital landscape. Yes, there have been threats and challenges recently, but they are an inevitable part of the development process that will lead to better risk management technologies and processes. The cloud will not evaporate.

The juggernaut is even bigger than you think. In Part 2 of the Social Media Primer (updated here), I describe many organizational applications of social media that extend beyond the possibilities most people are aware of. But as I continue to read and learn, I become increasingly aware of related applications of technological advances beyond social media, as well as myriad implications for individuals, organizations, and society. And when we consider that everything is in a constant state of flux with no end in sight, the transformative potential of these advances becomes even greater.  

As an umbrella term, therefore, digital technologies is much more accurate in describing the fundamental force behind the (r)evolution in which we find ourselves.

 

The Submission to Crain’s

Given Crain’s length restrictions on opinion pieces (425 words), I couldn’t provide a lot of detail in my submission. I thought about expanding it for the purposes of this post, but then decided it might be better to leave it “as is.” Here’s the unedited version…

Chicago’s commitment to supporting homegrown technology start-ups is admirable, and it’s been encouraging to read recent news about the increased activity of venture capitalists, incubator programs, entrepreneurs, and others in support of local web-tech firms.

It’s important to remember, however, that there are many other ways in which Chicago can demonstrate Digital Era leadership. Rather than trying to replicate Silicon Valley’s model, perhaps we would be better served by forging a path that builds on our unique history, capitalizes on our economic and cultural strengths, and emphasizes our academic community and traditional Chicago enterprises.

One way in which we can do that is to employ best practices in leveraging digital technologies to communicate with customers and other stakeholders. This effort has already begun, but there is more we can do to demonstrate leadership in various industries, especially those strongly associated with Chicago like consumer products, healthcare, museums, and financial services.

We can also demonstrate leadership with respect to new legal challenges related to intellectual property, commercial activity, employment practices, e-discovery, and social issues like privacy. Similarly, we can offer expert guidance in addressing the new human capital management challenges organizations are now facing.

We can provide examples for how traditional enterprises like media companies and manufacturers can develop new business models and find new ways to be competitive in response to economic threats and changing global realities resulting from new technologies. Chamber groups and various economic development entities can offer resources and guidance to help both new and established businesses better integrate digital technologies into their strategies and plans. Foundations can provide similar services for non-profit organizations.

Our academic community can become a hub for training Digital Era leaders and providing expertise by conducting research that addresses new realties and challenges. And with the new mayor’s commitment to open government, Chicago could become a model of Government 2.0.

We should create a coalition to ensure an integrated approach to establishing our city as a Digital Era leader. Perhaps the city’s economic development office could establish a Digital Era Leadership initiative. Or we could create a Council for Digital Era Leadership, similar to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs or the Chicago Council on Science and Technology.

Pursuing a Digital Era leadership agenda would provide a great economic boost to the area, in addition to enabling us to create a best-practices model for other communities. To my knowledge, no other community has thought about Digital Era leadership in broader terms. Why not us?

 

Your Thoughts?

A version of this opinion piece could probably be written for almost any metropolitan or regional area. Though areas differ in terms of their size and access to resources, and the specific ways in which digital leadership might manifest itself vary based on a region’s history, economy, academic institutions, citizenry, etc., those factors can be viewed as parameters within which to work and opportunities to capitalize on rather than immutable obstacles that can’t be overcome. The traditional barriers to success (e.g., access to capital and other resources) are in many respects a lot lower in the Digital Era than they’ve ever been. We are more restricted by the limitations imposed by lack of vision, inspiration, leadership, strategic focus, and discipline than we are by a lack of finances, technology, or human capital.

At least, that’s how I view things. How about you? Do you share my vision? Can you provide examples of that vision in action? What ideas do you have for moving forward? What leadership role do you plan to assume to help your city/state/region capitalize on the opportunities new digital technologies present?

As always, I welcome your feedback and input.

-  Courtney Hunt, PhD

 

S.M.A.R.T. News 15-Feb-2011

This SMinOrgs News Digest includes pieces that are united by relatively unconventional perspectives on social media. There is a new twist on branding from Pepsi, a video about using social media for product innovation, a best practices example from the Department of Defense, an article on time and information management challenges, updated social infographics, and fresh perspective on social media policies.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on the items in this News digest directly via the blog, or start or join the dialogue for an individual item by following the link to the corresponding discussion on LinkedIn. We also appreciate your bringing fresh items to our attention via LI, Twitter, or FB, or by emailing a link to news@sminorgs.net. Thanks!

Click here to learn more about the SMinOrgs News Digest feature and how you can leverage it to meet your goals and objectives.

If you'd like to receive a notice each time a new post is published, you can subscribe to the SMinOrgs S.M.A.R.T. Blog by clicking here or on the link on the right side of the website.

 

 

Title: Refreshing Pepsi's Super Bowl Alternative

Source: NPR

Author: Pam Fessler

Lead Paragraph: If you watched last year's Super Bowl, you might have noticed that, for the first time in 23 years, there was no Pepsi commercial.

Instead, the company decided to take the $20 million it would have spent on advertising and start an online contest to fund creative charitable ideas.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

What appeals to me about this story is that it demonstrates how marketing resources can be reallocated in the Digital Era to serve the public good while also promoting the brand. More generally, it provides an example of how companies can and should take a longer-term perspective and think more expansively and creatively about interacting with consumers and other potential stakeholders.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: applications, best practices, community, leadership, marketing/branding/sales, opportunities, strategy

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Title: Social Product Innovation: It's More than Facebook

Source: YouTube

Author: KalypsoLP

Lead Paragraph: If you think social media equals Facebook, watch this. How are you using social media for product development?

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This brief video helps make the case for thinking about social media in broader terms, both with respect to going beyond the main public social media platforms and in terms of thinking beyond external applications like marketing.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: applications, knowledge management, leadership, opportunities, strategy

 

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Title: Department of Defense SlideShare Channel

Source: SlideShare

Author: n/a

Lead Paragraph: SlideShare site for Department of Defense Public Affairs

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This is a great example of social media in action, both in terms of the DoD’s leveraging of the SlideShare platform, as well as the content it’s chosen to share.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: applications, best practices, government 2.0, legal/policy, public sector

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Title: Recovering from Information Overload (subscription required to access)

Source: McKinsey Quarterly

Author: Derek Dean and Caroline Webb

Lead Paragraph: For all the benefits of the information technology and communications revolution, it has a well-known dark side: information overload and its close cousin, attention fragmentation. These scourges hit CEOs and their colleagues in the C-suite particularly hard because senior executives so badly need uninterrupted time to synthesize information from many different sources, reflect on its implications for the organization, apply judgment, make trade-offs, and arrive at good decisions.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

One of the best things about this article is that it recognizes time & information challenges have been a key factor of organizational life for decades, even though the ways in which the challenges manifest themselves have changed. In addition to the good advice provided in the article, there are also good ideas from readers. I'd add that it's important to define your strategic goals & objectives & let them serve as a guiding force for your actions. The discipline suggested in the article has to be driven by something...

What are your biggest challenges? What are your best management tips?

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: challenges, enterprise 2.0, individual engagement, internal communication, leadership

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Title: World Map of Social Networks

Source: Vincos Blog

Author: Vincos

Lead Paragraph: A brand new map of the world, showing the most popular social networks by country, according to Alexa & Google Trends for Websites traffic data* (December 2010).

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

Many thanks to Greg Jensen for alerting me to this post, which has updated infographics reflecting how social media is a global phenomenon with a local/regional focus. I used the previous version of these infographics (via Brian Solis's blog post from about a year ago) in Part 8a of the Social Media Primer, which is entitled, "It's a Brave New World... Even if You Want the Old One Back" (http://tiny.cc/SMinOrgsPrimer8a).

In addition to providing updated statistics, this post highlights changes over time and offers other insights. Even better are the comments shared by people from all over the world, which so powerfully demonstrate the globo-local nature of social media.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories:individual engagement, leadership, opportunities, social media primer, strategy

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Title: Align Social Media Strategy with Business Objectives

Source: HRZone

Author: Cath Everett

Lead Paragraph: Employers need to approach the development of a social media policy in an organised and planned fashion and ensure that it is consistent with the organisation’s mission, strategy and values, Gartner has advised.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This piece was shared by Ron Thomas via the LinkedIn group. I think a better title would be “Align Social Media POLICY with Business Objectives.” I wonder if it’s a typo…

Regardless, this is one of the best pieces I’ve read on social media policy development and implementation. I particularly love the recommendation to develop a policy in light of the organization’s social media strategy. That really does need to be the starting point and guiding light for all efforts and initiatives…

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: best practices, human resources, internal communication, leadership, legal/policy, strategy

S.M.A.R.T. News 16-Dec-2010

This SMinOrgs News Digest includes pieces on broad issues like privacy and gender differences in the use of social media, as well as several pieces that address leadership issues and a couple of pieces focused on “social media realities.”

Please feel free to share your thoughts on the items in this News digest directly via the blog, or start or join the dialogue for an individual item by following the link to the corresponding discussion on LinkedIn. We also appreciate your bringing fresh items to our attention via LI, Twitter, or FB, or by emailing a link to news@sminorgs.net. Thanks!

Click here to learn more about the SMinOrgs News Digest feature and how you can leverage it to meet your goals and objectives.

If you'd like to receive a notice each time a new post is published, you can subscribe to the SMinOrgs S.M.A.R.T. Blog by clicking here or on the link on the right side of the website.

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Title: When the iPad Is the Only Computer Your Employees Need—or Want

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek

Authors: Robin Murdoch, Jeanne G. Harris and Glenn DeVore

Lead Paragraph: It's too late to stop the spread of consumer technologies like Facebook, smartphones, and Twitter in the workplace. Here's how to get with the program.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

Although the headline is a bit misleading, I think the recommendations provide good advice for CIOs, CTOs and other executives to embrace new digital technologies and tools, including new devices and new ways of accessing and storing data. Rather than fighting the trends because of their fear of the risks involved, their energy would be better served figuring out ways to manage those risks.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: challenges, leadership, opportunities, risk management, strategy

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Title: Are Women Better at Understanding Social Media?

Source: Asia Pacific FutureGov

Author: Robin Hicks

Lead Paragraph: Women are better than men at understanding and using social media, Andrea Di Maio, a government ICT analyst, suggested in a blog recently. FutureGov Asia Pacific put this theory to officials in Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands. If true, what could it mean for citizen engagement?

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

Here are the comments I added to the post:

I think exploration of gender differences in the use of social media and other digital technologies is an important topic to research. There are established literatures on gender differences in communication and leadership, for example, and I suspect academic projects testing those differences in cyberspace have already begun.

People can opine all they want and provide anecdotal evidence to support their opinions, but this is ultimately an empirical question. “Better or worse,” however, is the wrong one to ask. It might make for an enticing headline, but it has little real value. If there are differences in how men and women use social media tools (and based on my personal experience I think there are), then what we need to do is understand those differences so we can respond and adapt to them appropriately. Some organizations (both private sector for profit and non-profit, as well as public sector and NGO entities) will be able to target their communications specifically to one general style or the other, whereas others will have to find a way to balance mutliple styles in a more hybrid approach.

And I'd be wary of taking the “statistics” provided above too literally, for a couple of reasons. First, they're over a year old, which in social media time is an eternity. Second, based on the data I've seen, the numbers are really close - “outnumbering” usually means something like 52% to 48% rather than 75% to 25%.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: government 2.0, individual engagement, leadership, public sector

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Title: Profile of a Social Media Director

Source: Write.Speak.Sell

Author: Jeannette Paladino

Lead Paragraph: The role of social media in promoting a company’s brand and services is so important that I thought it was time to examine the profile of the Social Media Director. I started by pulling up job postings to sift through the specific skills and experience that companies expect of candidates for this relatively new position in organizations.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This piece was shared by Jeannette Paladino. It's great that she took the time to do this research and share her insights.

Part 6 of the Social Media Primer provides some complementary research and perspectives; however, I take a broader perspective on the human capital management issues that leveraging social media can create. Not only do organizations need to think beyond new social media positions - even leadership positions - they need to think about what increased social media implementations mean for existing roles, as well as related issues concerning talent acquisition, compensation, training, etc.

And though it may seem to be a quibble, I am perennially bothered by the widely held assumption that social media = external applications like marketing, sales, branding, customer service, etc. As I discuss in Part 2 of the primer, external applications are just the tip of the iceberg. As a set of technologies, social media will have much more value and use to an organization when leveraged internally, as well as on the boundary between organizations.

When intra-organizational and inter-organizational applications are considered, as well as the myriad legal, policy and human capital management implications of these technologies, we will start to realize that the "Social Media Director" job, however it may be labeled, is far bigger than what most people perceive today. One of the future parts of the primer will address this idea explicitly by tackling the "ownership" question. If I could just find - I mean make - the time...

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: human resources, leadership, marketing/branding/sales, social media primer, strategy

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Title: Turn the Power of Social Media Inward to Connect Your Company

Source: Thunderbird School of Global Management

Author: n/a

Lead Paragraph: Information technology surrounds consumers in the digital age. But many who use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media tools to connect with friends outside the office find themselves stuck with little more than corporate e-mail at work.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This piece was shared by Bruce Kneuer via Twitter. I've articulated many of the same ideas through the Social Media Primer I'm developing (http://tiny.cc/SMinOrgsPrimer). It's great to read/hear validation of those ideas, especially from a practitioner in a large, leading-edge firm like Intel. Be sure to watch the video as well as reading the post.

Implicit in Laurie's comments are some challenges that are important for leaders to address. First among these is that they need to make leveraging new digital tools and technologies a strategic priority, and provide the necessary support to enable people to be successful using them. Though groundswells can work elsewhere, they can't necessarily be relied on inside organizations. For example, although email may be a "collaborative tool," it's a clunky one at best. People can accomplish tasks more efficiently and effectively using 2.0 technologies, but they may be resistant to work outside of their comfort zones without prompting, direction, and support from the powers that be. With respect to forces for change, they need to come from the top as well as the bottom.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: applications, best practices, challenges, internal communication, leadership, social media primer

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Title: How Easy is it to do Business with You?

Source: Customer Think

Author: Justin Flitter

Lead Paragraph: It's not about what Social Media can do for your business. It's about what your business can do with Social Media.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This piece was shared by Jerry Carducci. Although its focus is limited to external applications of social media, it nicely captures some of the core ideas for organizational leaders to consider.

I’d like to specifically comment on the “team sport” idea. Last week I gave a presentation to a women’s mentoring group. Most of the people there were fairly young, but their level of social media sophistication was pretty low (once again defying the “digital native” myth). As they introduced themselves, several commented (somewhat gratefully and disdainfully) that social media “wasn’t their job,” so they didn’t really know – or need to know – what their organizations were doing to leverage it. I’d venture to extend Justin’s argument by saying that leaders need to think about not only expanding the social media engagement of their employees, but also social media listening. Is it too much to expect employees to follow their employer on Twitter and/or Facebook, and/or subscribe to their blogs? For certain, externally-facing positions, and all of top management, I think it should be required.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: marketing/branding/sales, leadership

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Title: Technology Outpaces Privacy (Yet Again)

Source: New York Times

Author: Natasha Singer

Lead Paragraph: How far does consumer privacy protection lag behind data-collection systems, those advanced technologies that media companies use to gather, share and profit from our personal information?

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

We continue to live in interesting times … I always appreciate articles like this that put today's technologies - and the issues they create - in historical perspective. Privacy is one of the biggest challenges both individuals and organizations will have to address in the coming years, and some form of regulation is inevitable. Because legislation lags reality, however, we will have to rely on personal responsibility and ethics to determine our actions in the short term.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: challenges, individual engagement, leadership, legal/policy, marketing/branding/sales, risk management

S.M.A.R.T. News 30-Nov-2010

This SMinOrgs News Digest includes pieces on LinkedIn, enterprise 2.0 challenges and opportunities, thought leadership, and research on a new way of measuring social media success.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on the items in this News digest directly via the blog, or start or join the dialogue for an individual item by following the link to the corresponding discussion on LinkedIn. We also appreciate your bringing fresh items to our attention via LI, Twitter, or FB, or by emailing a link to news@sminorgs.net. Thanks!

Click here to learn more about the SMinOrgs News Digest feature and how you can leverage it to meet your goals and objectives.

If you'd like to receive a notice each time a new post is published, you can subscribe to the SMinOrgs S.M.A.R.T. Blog by clicking here or on the link on the right side of the website.

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Title: 6 Compelling Reasons to Use LinkedIn Signal (with 4 Caveats)

Source: WindMill Networking

Author: Neal Schaffer

Lead Paragraph: LinkedIn Signal was released just two months ago as a new way for professionals to consume information.  While the new product was only available in beta for some time, my good friend Glen Loock recently mentioned to me that now anyone can access the application through LinkedIn Labs, or better yet, here’s the official link for Signal.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This post was shared by Cindy Ludford. I was not aware of this new feature, and I find it fascinating. Thanks to Neal for the thoughtful review.

I particularly like his caveat #3. I receive LI status updates via Nutshell Mail 3 times a day, and I tend to ignore the updates from people who over-tweet, cluster-tweet, and re-tweet to excess. Because LI has different volume/frequency norms than Twitter, this practice creates undifferentiated noise that ultimately may defeat the purpose of sharing. I therefore generally advise people to disconnect the two accounts and be thoughtful of what they share on LI (where I would venture to say that daily updates may even be too frequent).

Signal may change all that, but as Neal notes from the outset it's still early. I look forward to exploring Signal and seeing how its potential gets realized.

Kudos to LI for some significant product upgrades in the last few months. I am particularly keen on the addition of products and services and reviews to company profile pages.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: applications, individual engagement, marketing/branding/sales, opportunities

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Title: Enterprise 2.0 Adoption: Does It Have To Be So Hard?

Source: ReadWriteEnterprise

Author: n/a

Lead Paragraph: Anyone who has spent any time in the enterprise 2.0 business - for me, it's been five years - will admit this, if pressured: by far the greatest challenge for the market is not corporate fear, cluelessness, or laziness - the usual scapegoats. The challenge is something far more elusive: getting people in the company to adopt the program meaningfully, persistently, and scalably. The truth is that many enterprise 2.0 programs fail to gain traction because they actually require work. In the enterprise, culture matters, and culture is not something you can easily add, game, or integrate, like the latest 2.0 widget.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

I agree that cultural values are important, but I don't think the culture necessarily has to change for social media initiatives to be effective. I discuss organizational factors in Part 2 of the Social Media Primer, and when I address cultural factors I lead with efficiency and effectiveness rather than openness and innovation. Perhaps working with the current culture initially will enable the kinds of successes that can then lead to cultural shifts. It's worth considering...

I also address the steps to leveraging social media in Part 7 of the Primer, the first of which is defining a strategy. Auditing or assessing current practices is important (I define it as step 2), but it should be done within the context of what an organization is trying to achieve.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: challenges, enterprise 2.0, leadership, social media primer, strategy

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Title: Your Social Intranet is Where Work Gets Done

Source: Dachis Group

Author: Lars Plougmann

Lead Paragraph: When an organization launches a social intranet, the changes and benefits reach far wider than freeing up resource in the central intranet team. The intranet undergoes a fundamental shift when focus changes from communication to employees to work. The social intranet adds value to the organization through five mechanisms that traditional intranets do not embody…

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

Without a doubt, this is one of the best pieces I’ve read about social intranets - thoughtful, analytical, pragmatic. A great read.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: benefits, collaboration, community, enterprise 2.0, internal communication, knowledge management, opportunities

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Title: Finding New Ways to Measure Success in Social

Source: TNW Social Media

Author: Lauren Fisher

Lead Paragraph: Well according to the Huffington Post and APCO – there is. A recent study by the two organisations – Social EQ – sought to rank the Fortune 40’s top admired companies, in terms of the effectiveness of their social media strategies. The results (shown below) might be surprising, which begs the question of whether this really is an accurate measure of success in social media. To give some context to the study, it was run by working with a group of Social Informants (avid users of social media inside and out) who identified 6 key factors of social media success: dialogue; customer service; quality of content; platform diversity; engagement & interaction; optimisation. Then a larger group of over 4,000 people were surveyed, to rank the 40 companies according to these factors. The graphic below shows the rankings:

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This research is very interesting. I appreciate the questions the author raised about the findings and would like to extend her questioning in two ways:

1. How do we measure/value listening as a form of engagement? As a general rule, I think many social media advocates tend to undervalue it, but in my experience it should not be discounted. If we think about the 90/9/1 rule, the vast majority of people are going to stay in "listening" mode, and if they truly are listening - and choose to continue listening over time - that "passive" engagement is not necessarily a bad thing. To me the idea behind social media is that folks CAN engage in the dialogue, but that doesn't mean they HAVE to. Plus, if everyone's talking, who's listening?

2. Is dialogue between the company and its followers the best way to measure "active" engagement? By definition, social media facilitates user-generated content, which means it can generate multi-logues (i.e., group conversations) in addition to dialogues. In some sense, one could argue that conversations are truer to social media ideals when the organization initiating them (through their posts) is not actively involved when the followers respond. Of course if the responders only share monologues (i.e., add their own thoughts without putting them in the context of other comments), then the notion of interaction is missing regardless of who is talking. I would say it's important to measure the quality of the comments that follow a post, as well as the quantity, but the definition of quality should not be anchored on whether the organization is involved in the conversation.

Great food for thought. I'm looking forward to more research and analysis like this.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: applications,marketing/branding/sales, research

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Title: Getting a Job via Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin

Source: Jobberman Blog

Author: Ayodeji

Lead Paragraph: When Gbenga Ogunjimi sent an Event Invite in August to LinkedIn for 6 Figure Jobs and Businesses I practically ignored it. Shameful. Since then I have followed everything he has written on Web 2.0, social recruiting and using the power of Linkedin to land a 6-figure job.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This article was shared by Leigh Hirnisey. I love how Gbenga has integrated his thinking about social recruiting into the larger business and societal contexts. Kudos to him for all he has - and will - accomplish.

I especially appreciate that this article reflects the global nature of social media phenomena. Although Gbenga is in Nigeria, and Jobberman is a Nigerian job board, the ideas in this article are virtually universal.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: applications, government 2.0, human resources, individual engagement

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Title: The Seven Steps To Thought Leadership

Source: EzineMark.com

Author: Verna Case

Lead Paragraph: Most companies want to be known as thought leaders. Those few that do not probably don't understand how this positioning would positively impact their reputation, their ability to meet their business goals, the value of their company, and their sales.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This article is a great resource for any organization developing/revising its social media strategy to better reflect its unique market value proposition. Here are a couple of additional suggestions:

1. Remember that LISTENING is a critical aspect of thought leadership. Just as it's important to leverage social media to push messages out and pull people to an organization, it's also important to engage in those channels to learn and identify opportunities to address hot topics, (mis)information, significant challenges, etc.

2. The blog can be used as a channel for redistributing content in addition to sharing original content. I use the Social Media in Organizations (SMinOrgs) blog in a variety of ways that illustrate thought leadership both directly and indirectly.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

Categories: applications, best practices, leadership, marketing/branding/sales, strategy 

S.M.A.R.T. News 26-Oct-2010

This SMinOrgs News Digest includes pieces on marketing and branding, free speech rights, application challenges, government 2.0 and enterprise 2.0.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on the items in this News digest directly via the blog, or start or join the dialogue for an individual item by following the link to the corresponding discussion on LinkedIn. We also appreciate your bringing fresh items to our attention via LI, Twitter, or FB, or by emailing a link to news@sminorgs.net. Thanks!

Click here to learn more about the SMinOrgs News Digest feature and how you can leverage it to meet your goals and objectives.

If you'd like to receive a notice each time a new post is published, you can subscribe to the SMinOrgs S.M.A.R.T. Blog by clicking here or on the link on the right side of the website.

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Title: Gap Logo Reversal a Sign of Social Network Power

Source: Montreal Gazette

Author: Misty Harris

Lead Paragraph: It took Gap a week to declare its new logo a bust, likely making it the first large-scale corporate revamp with a shelf life shorter than milk. In case you missed it -- and if you blinked, you probably did -- the clothing retailer recently replaced its iconic blue logo with a more contemporary emblem that set the Gap name in bold Helvetica against a white canvas, with a small blue square in the upper-right corner. Online reaction was swift and sadistic, ultimately leading Gap to scrap the redesign just seven days after its introduction.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This piece was shared by Ron Thomas. I actually see this as a sign of leadership failure, on several counts. First, the folks responsible for this redesign could have involved the Gap community in the effort before the final logo was introduced. Secondly, as noted in the piece, they could have engaged with the critics and detractors after the launch, once the negative feedback started rolling in. And finally, they should not have been so quick to cave in and eliminate the new logo. This is a great cautionary tale for any individual or organization considering significant changes in the Digital Era: don’t assume 1.0 approaches will continue to work indefinitely in a 2.0 world.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

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Title: Social Media, the First Amendment, and Citizens

Source: Center for Public Policy and Administration

Author: Megan Crowley, CPPA

Lead Paragraph: Now that local governments have embraced social media as a means to generate citizen engagement, there are some associated legal issues that should be addressed.  One issue is how social media relates to constitutional freedom of speech.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This piece was shared by Greg Jensen. It’s a nice complement to the article about Brentwood, TN’s social media policy that was included in the recent S.M.A.R.T. News Digest entitled “Social Media and the Public Sector I.” It provides some good examples of how public communities can allow for two-way communication with their stakeholders while also managing the risks that opening up the conversation can create.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

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Title: Cisco CEO Chambers' Key Risk: Running a Company on Social Networking

Source: ZDNet

Author: Larry Digman

Lead Paragraph: Cisco CEO John Chambers said the company’s two biggest risks are its bet that video will become critical to networks and trying to run his company on social networking.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This article was shared by Bruce Kneuer. I have to admit it frustrated me a bit. I wanted to hear more about the challenges Cisco is facing with creating a culture of collaboration, Chambers' ideas about how "more spending needs to support the 'cultural change of technology,'” and how "Cisco will grow employee productivity 10 percent a year over the next decade due to cloud computing, networking and collaboration." There is so much that so many can learn from them...

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

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Title: Hey Washington Post — It’s Called Social Media

Source: Matthew Ingram

Author: GigaOM

Lead Paragraph: It’s been awhile since we had a blow-up among traditional media entities about using Twitter and other social media, but now the Washington Post has provided yet another compelling example of how newspapers in particular aren’t really getting the whole “social” aspect of the social-media phenomenon. This was easy to forgive a year or two ago, when Twitter was relatively new, and social media was unfamiliar territory, but it’s really hard to cut the Washington Post or its brethren much slack at this point. Now it almost seems like they don’t want to get it. 

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This piece was shared by Greg Jensen. I don’t think these issues are unique to media organizations – in fact, the resistance to engage in dialogue is probably much greater in other types of firms. We are still in the early days of social media adoption, and we’re still figuring out where the lines are drawn and how communication should be managed. The legal, brand, and risk management issues are not trivial, especially given that the consequences of missteps can be much greater in the Digital Era than ever before. The conservatism is somewhat understandable when you have experienced journalists like the CNN reporter and the Post’s sports writer who engaged in a Twitter “hoax” shooting themselves in the foot – imagine what a rookie might do!

That said, I agree with the criticism that the Post should have some means for engaging in dialogue with their readers. Given its limitations (and risks) I would say Twitter is NOT the channel for doing that. My recommendation would be that they determine a set of rules for engaging in dialogue and consistently enforce them. For example, a journalist may provide clarifying responses and correct factual misrepresentations in the comments section for a specific article for up to seven days. And perhaps he/she could also enter into debate when appropriate. Each individual journalist could decide how to manage his/her activity, but they should be TRAINED to know the most appropriate ways to respond and engage. That seems to be another important element that's been overlooked by the Post…

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

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Title: Why Twitter Is a Big Win for Small Businesses

Source: Mashable.com

Author: Erica Swallow

Lead Paragraph: Twitter is used by businesses of all shapes and sizes for customer service, lead generation, public relations, marketing, crowdsourcing, sales and sharing up-to-date information. Successes aren’t universal, though. Many businesses find it difficult to overcome the learning curve, learn the Twitter lingo, gain a following and sustain interesting conversation while providing value for followers.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This article was shared by Catherine DiGennaro. I think the experiences of these three small businesses are illustrative for individuals and larger organizations as well. Though the details may vary, the underlying principles for leveraging Twitter are fundamentally the same - be strategic and authentic, engage with and attend to your followers, recognize the learning curve is steepest in the beginning but you never stop learning...

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

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Title: Whose Ethics Apply in Social Media?

Source: The Net-Savvy Executive

Author: Nathan Gilliatt

Lead Paragraph: Today's Wall Street Journal had Twitter abuzz about social media monitoring and privacy in closed communities ('Scrapers' Dig Deep for Data on Web). Specifically, a health discussion board and a social media analysis vendor using individual accounts to access personally identifiable health information. It's obviously an ethical question, but whose ethics apply? As far as I can tell? Nobody's (yet).

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This post initiates an important discussion we all need to engage in, regardless of how we may choose to use social media. The WSJ referenced in the article is worth reading as well. I’ve also included this article in my follow-up post on social screening. What are your thoughts on the ethical standards we should use when deailing with digital data?

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

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Title: Digital Policy Council Tracks An Open Government Movement Around The Globe

Source: PRWeb

Author: n/a

Lead Paragraph: The Digital Policy Council (DPC), an international, non-partisan "think tank" on 21st Century Governance, has released updated rankings on the use of social media by heads of state. The DPC is the research and public advocacy arm of Digital Daya ('digital influence'), a new generation strategic consultancy that empowers leaders in the public sectors to leverage the new media of the Internet to communicate their message, build public influence, and execute high-impact programs to reshape governance and public policy.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

The study’s results are interesting, but the long-term commitment to social media implied by the creation of the DPC is even more fascinating.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

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Title: The Inextricable Link Between Social Media and Enterprise 2.0

Source: The Community Roundtable

Author: Rachel Happe

Lead Paragraph: Social media and enterprise 2.0 are largely thought of separately these days, in large part because social media primarily affects communications and relationships with constituent groups outside of the organization and enterprise 2.0 addresses collaboration and innovation behind the firewall.  In reality, organizations will find that by doing one they must address the other. Why?  Social technologies significantly reduce the cost of content creation, distribution and discovery, thereby significantly increasing the speed of information and value transfer.  If implemented on one side of the corporate firewall but not the other, it creates an imbalance that grows quickly, increasing tension and strain felt in other parts of the organization.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

I disagree with the characterization that “social media primarily affects communications and relationships with constituent groups outside of the organization.” This characterization unfortunately reinforces the too-common confusion of a set of technologies with their application. As I discuss in Parts 1 and 2 of the Social Media Primer (http://www.sminorgs.net/social-media-primer.html), digital social media can be leveraged externally, internally, and on the boundary between organizations. It’s not the exclusive province of a single domain.

That said, I appreciate the idea that organizations should consider the consistency with which they’re leveraging these technologies in different applications. Just as it’s important to think about the synchronicity between internal and external applications, it’s also important to think about the synchronicity of applications within an organization. For example, an organization that leverages the new technologies to support its knowledge management efforts but doesn’t consider their impact on their human capital management practices could also create obstacles and frustrations for its employees.

Strategic leadership is key to maximizing the effectiveness of the implementation of social media in organizations.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

 

S.M.A.R.T. News 18-Oct-2010

This SMinOrgs News Digest includes pieces on digital communities, mobile technology, leadership, measurement, and more.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on the items in this News digest directly via the blog, or start or join the dialogue for an individual item by following the link to the corresponding discussion on LinkedIn. We also appreciate your bringing fresh items to our attention via LI, Twitter, or FB, or by emailing a link to news@sminorgs.net. Thanks!

Click here to learn more about the SMinOrgs News Digest feature and how you can leverage it to meet your goals and objectives.

If you'd like to receive a notice each time a new post is published, you can subscribe to the SMinOrgs S.M.A.R.T. Blog by clicking here or on the link on the right side of the website.

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Title: Succeeding with Professional Forums and Online Communities - AETC/FM

Source: Newsgator (via ReadyTalk)

Author: n/a

Lead Paragraph: The Air Education and Training Command Financial Management (AETC/FM) community is leading the way in collaboration within the U.S. Air Force. In order to better support airmen and the management of resources – AETC is improving the way people work together, solve problems, share best practices, and better use collective experience and wisdom. With the implementation of NewsGator’s Tomoye robust collaboration technology, AETC is achieving key personnel development goals around professional networking, mentoring, and knowledge exchange. Heather Gossard and Keith Bell discuss the ways in which their professional forums and online communities help AETC to save time and resources while learning from each other every day.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This link will give you access to the archived recording of a webinar I sat in on yesterday, which provides a real-world example of an organization's efforts to leverage social media internally. What I especially liked is that even though this was a Newsgator-sponsored webinar and the AETC used one of their products, the emphasis was on the human aspects of deploying the technology rather than the technology itself.

Click here to add a comment to the LinkedIn discussion for this item, and/or to read the comments shared by others.

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Title: Future Growth: It's All About Mobile

Source: MediaPost Blogs

Author: Diane Mermigas

Lead Paragraph: If you don't have a mobile strategy, you don't have a growth plan. If that sounds extreme, consider some of the latest data framing the emerging global mobile paradigm that is reinventing consumer orientation for every business in every industry. For starters, the 3,339 texts per month (or six per hour) traded by U.S. teens (4,050 texts per month for girls) reported by Nielsen this week suggest that mobility is a way of life.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This article was shared by Ron Thomas. Although it article is focused on the use of mobile devices for external purposes (i.e., marketing and sales), organizational leaders must remember that they have tremendous potential for internal uses as well (e.g., training, knowledge management, internal communication, benefits administration). As companies move forward with their social media iniatiaves, they need to think BIG about how their goals and objectives can be met using SMALL devices.

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Title: The Power of the Social Cloud

Source: HBR Blogs

Author: John Hagel III and John Seely Brown

Lead Paragraph: In our previous two posts, we discussed the significance of cloud computing and social software. We rarely get excited about technology for technology's sake — we are most interested in how technologies (and people and practices) alter the business landscape. In this post, we explore how the convergence of these two technology edges can help to support extreme performance improvement. In particular, we want to focus on their potential to change individuals' behaviors and orientation toward challenges.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This piece was shared by Jerry Carducci, who writes: Interesting HBR article on the power of "cloud computing" and social software and how they combine to transform the way workers resolve challenges, develop their talents and engage their interests and how firms discover new opportunities for growth, innovation and sustained performance. Here are my thoughts:

The power of the social cloud can be realized by all organizational members, not just those working on the edge and/or those with questing dispositions (and as social creatures, I would venture to say that most of us have connecting dispositions). Those folks may be among the early adopters, but ultimately 2.0 technologies and tools will be integrated into everyone's work lives. If the ideas in this piece were married with related discussions such as those on social network analysis, the true potential of these technologies would become more clear.

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Title: 5 Business Lessons Social-Media Advocates Must Learn before They Can Earn Leadership Buy-In

Source: SmartBlog on Social Media

Author: Jesse Stanchak

Lead Paragraph: It’s almost a cliche at this point: The stodgy old CEO, the technophobic board of directors, the knee-jerk legal department — all with their fingers in their ears and muttering “no, no, no” any time anyone suggests the company give social media a shot.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This piece was shared by Jerry Carducci, who writes: Sound familiar? It isn’t getting business leaders to understand social media; it’s getting social media leaders to understand business.

Here is the comment I added to the blog post: I appreciate the recommendations for managing the political aspects of greenlighting social media initiatives. Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. New digital technologies, including social media, have the potential to transform how work gets done in organizations. External applications such as marketing and sales are just the tip of the iceberg. Even if an organization were to leverage the technologies only for external purposes, there’s a host of internal implications (e.g., legal and policy issues, human capital management) that must be addressed as well.

2. Given the potential breadth and depth of the impact of new technologies, organizational leaders must understand them and their potential applications and implications. They don't have to be power users, but they do need to develop an understanding that is appropriate for their position - and they would probably also benefit from some hands on experience. To help leaders in this regard, I am developing a Social Media Primer, which can be accessed via http://www.sminorgs.net/social-media-primer.html.

3. "Should we or shouldn’t we” discussions should not begin with the technologies, tactics or metrics. Rather, they should start with an identification (or reiteration) of strategic goals and objectives, followed by an assessment of WHETHER and HOW social media technologies can help achieve them. If leaders determine that social media CAN help them, they should assess their current technologies and processes and determine if the new approaches might be more effective. If they determine they can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their efforts by integrating new technologies, they should develop a plan for leveraging them.

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Title: What is Holding Back Social Media Investment?

Source: eMarketer

Author: n/a

Lead Paragraph: Social media gets a lot of discussion and even a lot of participation from marketers, but in most cases budgets remain low. One reason for the reluctance to invest more is the old problem of ROI. While some marketers have created successful social media campaigns that they feel they can measure and determine a benefit from, many have still not solved the social success equation.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This article was shared by Mike VanDervort. My thoughts:

I don't typically like to include externally-focused pieces in this group, but I think this article has important internal implications. Specifically, I think the study and its results reveal some potentially flawed thinking in terms of how to exploit and "measure" social media efforts (whether for internal or external purposes). The results also give the impression that more emphasis is being placed on the tactical pursuits of social media rather than the potential strategic benefits, which is another general risk.

Bottom line for me is that rather than revealing much about social media's value itself, this study potentially reveals much more about the flawed approaches organizations and their leaders are taking to leveraging the new technologies.

They say you can't manage what you can't measure, but it's also important to understand the meaning of what you're trying to measure...

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Title: The Seven Sins of Performance Measurement

Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Author: Lisa Hershman

Lead Paragraph: Not long ago, I asked a client about his company's metrics for performance. Excited, he reached for a binder that was four inches thick. As my eyes widened, he told me that the following week he would have another binder for the month that just ended. Yes, the binder in his hand held the metrics for just one month.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This post relates to the piece Mike VanDervort shared (see preceding item). As I said in my comment on that piece: They say you can't manage what you can't measure, but it's also important to understand the meaning of what you're trying to measure... Here are some more thoughts:

Metrics and ROI are receiving a lot of attention in discussions of social media, but the measurement emphasis too often reflections an 8th sin: measurement myopia.

Specifically, there is a tactical, campaign-oriented perspective on social media that requires a clearly measured short term benefit for any social media effort. Given its nature, the perspective should instead be on the strategic, long-term value, much of which will produce benefits that aren't directly measurable.

And maybe there's a fundamental sin that undergirds all the others: the tyranny of measurement itself, which can be penny wise and pound foolish...

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S.M.A.R.T. News 01-Oct-2010

This SMinOrgs News Digest includes pieces on generational differences, government 2.0, labor issues, strategy, risk management, and human resources applications.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on the items in this News digest directly via the blog, or start or join the dialogue for an individual item by following the link to the corresponding discussion on LinkedIn. We also appreciate your bringing fresh items to our attention via LI, Twitter, or FB, or by emailing a link to news@sminorgs.net. Thanks!

Click here to learn more about the SMinOrgs News Digest feature and how you can leverage it to meet your goals and objectives.

If you'd like to receive a notice each time a new post is published, you can subscribe to the SMinOrgs S.M.A.R.T. Blog by clicking here or on the link on the right side of the website.

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Title: The Facebook Generation Vs Fortune 500

Source: #hypertextual

Author: Cecil Dijoux

Lead Paragraph: Over at the management exchange, Management 2.0 super-hero and hypertextual darling Gary Hamel has compiled a list of 12 work relevant characteristics for the Facebook Generation. This is a highly recommend read which echoes hypertextual 10 principles of Enterprise 2.0 and Digital Natives Vs Corporate BS.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This post was shared by Cecil Dijoux.

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Title: DOD Marches Forward with Social Media

Source: Government Computer News

Author: Henry Kenyon

Lead Paragraph: After much hand-wringing about the use of social media and Web 2.0 tools, which quickly swept through the commercial world and some civilian agencies, the Defense Department has embraced the tools — in its own way.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

The leveraging of technology and features from public social media sites (e.g., Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter) into private social networks is a very powerful trend that will only increase. This article provides a great example of digital 2.0 technology deployment and evolution and includes links to related articles that might also be of interest.

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Title: Labor Disputes Arising out of Social Media

Source: Law Technology News, Law.com

Author: Seth Borden

Lead Paragraph: As the dramatic growth of social media continues to transform the manner in which we all interact with each other, prudent employers must consider traditional labor law principles when implementing workplace social media policies. The new National Labor Relations Board is paying attention to new media in all its forms, featuring its own Facebook page, YouTube channel, and Twitter feed. It is only a matter of time before this board directly addresses labor disputes arising out of the use of these media in the workplace.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This piece was shared by Mike VanDervort. As with other areas of the law, the basic rules haven't changed, but employers need to make sure that (1) their policies and practices reflect the new digital environments where these laws may be relevant, (2) their managers and employees are properly informed and trained about how and where the lines need to be drawn in these spaces.

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Title: Social Media Landscape Map

Source: Social Media Tools for Work and Learning

Author: Brent MacKinnon

Lead Paragraph: I love maps. They help me find my way through the complex and shifting terrain of social media. As I work on social media strategies with organizations I’ve come to see some common “landing spots”. I’ve put these landing spots in the form of a map.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This landscape map provides a nice at-a-glance view of the key elements that could become a part of an organization's social media strategy.

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Title: McAfee Inc. Global Report Reveals Security Concerns Hinder Adoption of Web 2.0 and Social Networking in Business

Source: MarketWatch

Author: n/a

Lead Paragraph: McAfee, Inc. today revealed that business leaders worldwide see the value of Web 2.0 in supporting productivity and driving new revenue - but remain deeply concerned about security threats associated with deploying the technology.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

This press release includes a link to request a copy of the full report. The most surprising result for me was that 2/3 of the organizations included in the study have social media policies. That seems very high to me, leading me to wonder what organizations were included in the sample, and how representative they are.

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Title: Targeting (Benefit) Trends

Source: Human Resource Executive Online

Author: Carol Harnett

Lead Paragraph: Three benefits trends seem to have come to the forefront during the past year -- the importance of innovation and thought leadership, the turn toward customization of benefits, and the growing discussion of adapting benefits to a culturally, racially and globally diverse workforce.

Brief Commentary from SMinOrgs

Carol Harnett's reflections on emerging trends in benefits feature social media in a variety of ways. Has your organization started leveraging social media to enhance its benefits administration?

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