S.M.A.R.T. Blog

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

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

===//===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

Digital Era Leadership: Defining Characteristics?

What does it mean to be a leader in the Digital Era? Have the requirements for success drastically changed, or are they fundamentally the same? This post invites people to share their thoughts, as well as related resources, on the defining characteristics of leadership as the Digital Era progresses and evolves.

===//===

In honor of President’s Day in the United States, I’d like to solicit people's views on what leadership means in the Digital Era. Specifically:

• Do leaders need to exhibit new values, traits or behaviors to be effective? If so, what are they? And on the flip side, are there values, traits and behaviors leaders need to stop exhibiting?
• Should leaders be directly involved with social technologies. If so, where, how and to what degree?
• What kinds of fiduciary responsibilities do new social and digital technologies present for leaders?

We’re currently working with Silverman Research to develop answers to these questions by analyzing various "conversations" in cyberspace that try to tackle them. We've created a database with over 70 sources 400 data points (e.g., a blog post and its comments), and we'd love to add more perspectives to the mix. In addition to telling us your own point of view, we appreciate your sharing links to articles, blog posts, and research studies that address one or more of the questions above. And of course we invite you to share the post with your own networks so that we can expand the conversation even further.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

Note: This project is an extension of research we started in August 2011. The preliminary results of our efforts were summarized in a blog post entitled “What Does it Take to be a Leader in the Digital Era?” Jerry Carducci and Karin Wills have also developed a forthcoming publication tentatively titled “Leading in the Digital Era: Communications, Relationships, and Decision Making.” If you’d like to be notified as soon as it’s available, please send a message to de-leaders@sminorgs.net. Thanks!

Increasing Social Engagement: A Little Recognition Goes a Long Way

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

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

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

===//===

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

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

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

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

 

A Thank-You Can Go a Long, Long Way

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

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

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

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

 

The Gamification of Knowledge Sharing

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

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

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

 

Put These Tactics on Your Checklist

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

I strongly advocate a number of strategies including:

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

===//===

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.

===//===

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

===//===

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.

Tumbln into Tumblr V

Highlighting the activity on the SMinOrgs (and GCDEL) Tumblelog, this post recaps and provides links to entries about social and digital technologies including images and videos that reflect Digital Era realities, insights from attorneys about managing Digital Era risks, and several retrospective pieces that put today's opportunities and challenges in perspective (often with serious doses of humor!). The post also features five of our best and favorite Tumblr posts from November 2012 (the Medieval Help Desk was a runaway hit!).

===//===

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

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

Here are some of the items we "tumbld" in November 2012. Click on the titles to check each entry out. I've also highlighted a few of our best and favorite posts below. Note: the Medieval Help Desk was a runaway hit - and a must watch!

The Global Employer: The Social Media Issue. Baker & McKenzie asked some of their leading Labor and Employment attorneys to provide answers to questions that many companies are facing with regard to the use of social media. In this issue, you will find answers to questions that relate to recruitment, discipline and dismissal, protecting the business, and legal proceedings in 17 different jurisdictions.

A composite of favorite Digital Era images from the aftermath of SuperStorm Sandy.

An ironic rant: from self-righteousness to self-deprecation. Two Facebook posts from Tim McDonald are both damn funny and offer an important lesson: Even the most experienced and savvy among us can make mistakes. Rather than trying to hide or delete them, handling them with a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor - and good-natured aplomb - is a much better approach.

Managing Employer Risks in the Digital Era: 4 Recent Stories. This post provides links to four pieces from three countries, all written by attorneys. They address Digital Era issues that all employers should be concerned about. Three focus on social media and related policies, and one focuses on risks associated with BYOD (bring your own device) programs.

Joshua Topolsky on the Jimmy Fallon Show. In a hilaroius (and naughty) segment, they try to preview the Surface, Lumia, Nexus 4, Nexus 10, iPad mini and maxi.

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

1994 Today Show: “What is the Internet, Anyway?” This video makes me chuckle, but the underlying truth is sobering. We’ve come a long way in the last twenty years, yet there are still many people who are trying to wrap their brains what new technology is and what it means. In the Digital Era, I think we’ll be in a perennial state of confusion as technology continues to advance far faster than our human capacity to absorb and comprehend it.

Tourist info for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC…Is rather 20th century (the book on the right is for finding names on the wall). I think they need a digital upgrade… : ) But not everything in DC is so “old school.” Check out the other Digital Era Images and THIS is Social Media pictures we posted on Pinterest after a recent visit.

Social Media Video 2013 (by Erik Qualman). Though I’m happy the video contents have been updated, I’m even happier that the original soundtrack from Fat Boy Slim has returned! You can also view the video with alternative music. Erik has updated his book, Socialnomics, as well as the video. Click here to read the related blog post and link to the book.

Computer History Museum’s online exhibition called Revolution. The story of computing is epic. It’s driven by the human passion for tinkering, inventing and solving difficult problems where accidents and luck can be as important as brilliant engineering. Explore the revolution that has changed our world…

Big Blue Embraces Social Media (2008). People ask me all the time when and how I got interested in social media, and how and why I started the Social Media in Organizations (SMinOrgs) Community. I consider this Businessweek article my Genesis. Although I had had an abiding interest in digital communication for a number of years, when I read this piece in 2008, I thought “this changes everything.”

Content – An Illustrated History. An infographic summarizing the history of media and its content. A repost of one of the many cool images we share via our Pinterest presence.

Medieval Help Desk with English Subtitles. This. is. hysterical. I mean, ridiculously funny with an undeniable ring of truth! Whether you represent the “help desk” or the flabbergasted and confused end user, I’m sure you can relate! Many thanks to Assistant Community Manager Sean Pearson for bringing this to my attention.

We generally post one item to Tumblr each morning, Monday through Friday, which also gets tweeted out just after 8 am CT. If you'd like to be notified of our Tumblr content as soon as it's published, you can follow us if you have your own Tumblr account or you can subscribe to our Tumblr posts via RSS feed or email. We also share occasional “Today on Tumblr” posts via LinkedIn, and of course you can visit our page whenever you like!

Also check out:

• Tumblin into Tumblr IV
• Tumbln into Tumblr III
• Tumbln into Tumblr II
• Tumbln into Tumblr I

===//===

A composite of images from the aftermath of SuperStorm Sandy
Posted November 5, 2012

===//===

An ironic rant: from self-righteousness to self-deprecation
Posted November 6, 2012

===//===

1994 Today Show: “What is the Internet, Anyway?”
Posted November 15, 2012

===//===

Social Media Video 2013 (by Erik Qualman)
Posted November 20, 2012

===//===

Medieval Help Desk with English Subtitles
Posted November 30, 2012

Social Media and HR: Lessons and Reflections from SUMMIT 2012

Want to know how to increase the role of social media in your organization’s HR strategy? Or maybe you’re just beginning to talk about it and don’t know where to start... A panel of senior professionals at SUMMIT 2012, the annual premiere event of The Human Resources Management Association of Chicago (HRMAC), recently shared their experiences and lessons learned. This post offers tips and takeaways for enhancing the effectiveness of social media initiatives in any organization and raises questions about how individual HR practitioners, their organizations, and professional associations like HRMAC should navigate the road ahead. 

===//===

This is a guest post from The Human Resources Management Association of Chicago (HRMAC).

HRMAC held its annual premiere event, SUMMIT 2012 on November 8^th at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL. With over 800 attendees and four general sessions, one of the highlights of the day was a panel discussion entitled Social Media and Mobile Communications: Leverage Your Ability to Connect, Share, and Engage. The session was moderated by WTTW Chicago Tonight’s Phil Ponce, and the panel included three leaders from the Chicago area: Joel Warady, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Enjoy Life Foods; Paul Hamann, President of The Night Ministry*; and Veronica Micklin, Manager of Associate Training at True Value Company (panelist bios appear at the end of this post).

The session began with a few poll questions that produced interesting results and set the stage for the discussion to follow:

• 51% of the respondents disagreed with the statement “Social media is important to my company’s overall HR strategy” (35% agreed, and 14% were uncertain).
• For professional outreach 87% said they mostly use LinkedIn (4% said Facebook and 3% said Twitter).
• 52% indicated they mostly use social media for recruitment; 34%said networking.
• 88% responded that their organization still has a significant learning curve in integrating social media into their HR strategy.

To early adopters and social media enthusiasts, these percentages may seem surprising and perhaps disheartening, but they are fairly typical and indicate that social media adoption in most organizations is still in its infancy.

In their introductory comments, the panelists emphasized that social media is a means for connecting and needs to be used as such in organizations, especially in HR. They also highlighted the fact that social media should be used for two-way communication and should become a platform for dialogue. Specifically, Hamann noted that social media is a great way to connect with employees who work odd-shifts or might not be in working environments that easily connect them with the rest of the organization. And Micklin reminded the group that people are always learning from one another. Offering electronic media simply facilitates a natural process.

Warady suggested that organizations consider hiring a ”Chief Listening Officer” to identify opportunities for improvement based on what employees and customers are saying about the organization and its products and services. Hamann recommended that the CEO set an example by using social media as his or her primary means of communication. The panelists also advised:

• A senior person or the CEO must be prepared for an increased level of transparency that will follow the initiation of social media. If she or he is not ready to be more transparent, then the use of the media cannot be complete or effective.
• Be aware that the use of social media will bring with it a whole host of other concerns that need to be addressed, such as policies around its use, employee access to it “off hours,” etc.

When asked by Phil Ponce about implementing social media into HR strategies and with employees, the panelists gave this advice:

• Start with a process or group in which sharing will be natural and the convenience will be appreciated, such as a cross-functional project or multi-site team.
• Start small and document your successes. Run a pilot in which you move communication from email to a new platform. Make access and participation easy.
• Invest in one-on-one time you need to make participants feel competent and excited about participating. You can prevent small questions from becoming barriers. Everyone learns at a different pace.
• Shake off any age bias. You’ll be surprised at the fast adoption and creative use by Baby Boomers.

Hamann also noted, “The constant goal is to keep your employees interested and involved in the overall social media plan of the company.” And Micklin suggested attendees remember the four E’s of social media: Engage, Educate, Excite and Evangelize.

 

Where Do We Go From Here?

The social media panel was both informative and stimulating, providing HR professionals and social media advocates alike with ideas and advice on how to better leverage social media and engage employees in its use. It also raised a number of questions and provided important food for thought. When we connect this session with the opening keynote from Penelope Trunk (The Brazen Careerist), in which she championed the idea of HR professionals assuming more significant roles as change agents, we were left with a few questions of our own:

• What role should HR professionals play in helping organizations and their members become more socially and digitally sophisticated?
• What changes need to take place in organizations to enable HR to assume a greater leadership role with respect to the digitization of work and the workplace?
• What changes do HR professionals need to make to better prepare themselves to take on those leadership roles?
• What role should a professional association like HRMAC take on to help HR professionals, HR functions, and organizations better prepare themselves for success in the Digital Era?

HRMAC has been and will continue to help its members address these questions and more as the Digital Era continues to evolve. We’d love to hear your thoughts on them as well.

 

About HRMAC

Since its founding in 1915, HRMAC has been leading the dialogue on workplace strategy, connecting HR leaders with the industry’s best-in-class resources, and growing Chicago area companies and talent. With a membership of over 750 organizations and a network of more than 7,000 HR professionals, HRMAC is the oldest organization of its kind in the country and independent of other local, state or national organizations. For more information on HRMAC please visit our website at www.hrmac.org.

 

About the Panelists

Joel Warady is Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Enjoy Life Foods, a leading brand in the North American Gluten-Free, Allergy-Friendly CPG category. Prior to joining Enjoy Life, Joel was Principal of Joel Warady Group, a Marketing, Social Media, and Business Growth consulting firm. Internationally, Joel is respected as a marketing and social media expert, speaker and business advisor. 

 

Paul Hamann is President & CEO of The Night Ministry, a 36-year-old Chicago non-profit that compassionately provides housing, health care, outreach, spiritual care, and social services to adults and youth who struggle with homelessness, poverty and loneliness. The Chicago Community Trust named Paul as one of three Nonprofit Experienced Leader Fellows for 2012, and in July of 2012, he was awarded a Champion of Change Award by the White House and the Federal Interagency Council on Homelessness.

*Disclosure: The Night Ministry is a client of Renaissance Strategic Solutions, which is Courtney Shelton Hunt’s consultancy.

Veronica Micklin is the Manager of Associate Training at True Value Company where she provides leadership in helping employees improve their job performance and develop their careers. For True Value University, she created a blended multi-level curriculum for company managers, and developed the series Human Resource Toolkits, used extensively by True Value retailers.

Tumbln into Tumblr IV

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

===//===

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

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

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

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

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

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

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

Also check out:

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

===//===

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

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

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

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

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

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

===//===

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

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

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

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

===//===

Touch-Screen Fleece Gloves
Posted October 19, 2012

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

(via SMinOrgs on Pinterst: Digital Era Images)

===//===

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

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

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

===//===

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

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

===//===

How Millennial Are You? Quiz
Posted October 25, 2012

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

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

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

(via How Millennial Are You?)

===//===

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

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

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

===//===

Twitter Life Goals
Posted October 30, 2012

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

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

===//===

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

Email Versus Wiki Collaboration Graphic a Big Hit.

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

Be sure to read the related Wikinomics blog post too.

 

LinkedIn Poll: Books about Social and Digital Technology

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

 

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

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

===//===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

 

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

Getting started

Eight Principles of a Social Workplace - Attendee Assessment

One of the CEO Think Tank presentations

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

Dan Pontefract's Learning Circle