S.M.A.R.T. Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD 

 

Related Resources

10 Digital Era Truths

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

Digital Era Adaptation in 2013: A Long and Winding Road

The New Digital Divide: Thoughts for Leaders and Laggards

Digital Era Competencies: How Do You Stack Up?

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

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

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

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

Digital Era Leadership: The Role of Business Schools

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

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.

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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!

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

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

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Last year, with the help of Marci Stewart and Genifer Snipes, I embarked on a project to identify all the books that had been written about social and digital technologies. It was a naïve quest that has turned into a very ambitious undertaking. Although I was aware of the most well-known books from the past five or so years, I had no idea how many other publications were out there, or how far back they stretched. We’re now at 520 – and counting!

In this post I share some project details, the initial high-level results, and what we plan to do next. More importantly, I’d like to invite folks to participate in the development of the project by sharing the questions, analyses, and information they’re most interested in. And of course I welcome recommendations for books lists, titles, and authors, to make sure our final list is as complete and accurate as possible.

I look forward to hearing from you!

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

 

Methodology

Here, in a nutshell, is the approach we have used to create the database:

• We selected Goodreads as our primary source of information, primarily because it’s vendor neutral – and of course it’s a social media platform in its own right!
• We seeded the list with titles from “best of” lists like The 25 Best Social Media Books of 2011, 10 Best Social Media Books, and Top Social Media Marketing Books.
• For each book we collected the publication data, Goodreads rating information, title, author(s) and book description.
• To expand the initial list we checked the titles listed under “Readers also enjoyed similar books” and “Lists with This Book.” Once we had exhausted those sources we conducted 40+ searches using all the potentially relevant terms we could think of, including general terms like social media and big data as well as specific terms like Facebook and Tumblr.
• In an effort to make the data collection effort more manageable, we only included books that were written in English and had at least one review. Yes, that’s somewhat arbitrary – but we needed some kind of cutoff! We also tried to limit the database to books that were targeted to non-technical readers.
• Throughout the process we added relevant titles as they were brought to our attention if we hadn’t already identified them.

Using the book descriptions, we created a three-tiered coding scheme to reflect their focus:

• Perspective: conceptual (focused more on conveying information or discussing topics at a high level) and tactical (“how to” oriented).
• General focus: categories ranged from macro to micro and included society, commerce, marketing, workplace, individual, and data.
• Specific focus: used to indicate if a book was specifically focused on a single topic (e.g., cloud computing, Twitter, mobile, LinkedIn).

We’re happy to provide more details about our methodology upon request. Please add a comment or email books@sminorgs.net with your specific questions.

 

Initial Results

To convey a general sense of what these 500+ books are all about, we have created two Wordles using the books’ titles (after cleaning them up by deleting unnecessary words and combining similar terms).

The first Wordle includes all the relevant terms (click to enlarge):

Because SocialMedia, Guide, Marketing and Business dominated the results, we created a second Wordle without those terms to dig a bit deeper into the books’ focus (click to enlarge):

The initial results may seem “no duh-ish” to some folks, especially early adopters. There’s nothing particularly revelatory about the fact that the books published to date have had a heavy emphasis on business, specifically social media in the context of marketing. The “how to” focus of many of these books, as well as the promises of success, are also not surprising.

But some of the emphases are less obvious. For example:

• Blogging (which has been declared “dead” at least twice in the past 5 years) remains a primary topic.
• Even though Facebook is a significantly larger platform, Twitter and LinkedIn have received relatively more emphasis as book topics.
• Although people are still wrapping their brains around what to do with data, there have been a relatively substantial number of books focused on the topic (e.g., analytics, metrics). Similarly, cloud computing has also been a fairly significant topic of discussion.

And perhaps most importantly, we need to think about what’s not been addressed, as those are the areas in which there is perhaps the greatest need – and the greatest opportunity for thought leaders and authors. These include:

• More discussion and guidance about topics like gamification and mobile technologies.
• How social and digital technologies can and should be used in non-commercial sectors, including in non-profit and religious organizations, public sector entities, and academic institutions. In a similar vein, there’s probably a need and opportunity for more focused discussions on digital communities and community management.
• Applications and implications of new technologies inside organizations (e.g., enterprise 2.0, social business, social enterprise).
• Leadership-oriented discussions, especially in terms of what it means to be a leader in the Digital Era.
• The human-capital management implications of new digital technologies, as well as legal/policy issues and risk management considerations.
• Applications and implications of new technologies for individuals, including digital competencies, jobs, professions, and careers.

 

Coming Up

We are conducting more in-depth analyses of the data (including a formal text analysis in conjunction with Silverman Research) and plan to share more results in the coming weeks/months, including:

• A slide deck of Wordles that reveal emphases by year, category, etc.
• An infographic, which will include things like the first time Social Media appears in a book title and most popular buzzword(s), as well as various representations of general and specific categories.
• A white paper that offers a more formal treatment of the methodology, results, and implications.

If you’d like to be informed as soon as these and other results are published, please join our mailing list or subscribe to the S.M.A.R.T. Blog.

 

What’s on Your Mind?

To enhance the value of this project, we’d love to hear from you. Specifically, we’d like to know things like:

• What books would you like to make sure we include? Are there specific “best” lists we should double check? Favorite books or authors? Your own tomes? We’re especially interested in hearing about recently-published books, as we are more likely to have missed them.
• What other topics, categories and/or questions do you think are important to explore?
• What questions do you have? What would you like to know? What are you curious about?

Please add a comment or email books@sminorgs.net with your specific suggestions. Thanks!

 

Related Content

Paper or Digital? The Results are In… And It’s a (Virtual) Tie! With over 500 votes and nearly 200 comments, the results of a recent poll indicate people are fairly evenly split between paper and digital book formats. Although the poll wasn’t perfectly scientific, the richness of its results can be of great value to authors, book publishers, and designers, as well as professionals in other fields such as training and development, academia, and communications.

4 Big Barriers to Social Media Adoption in Organizations: Key Research Findings. The results of a unique and ground-breaking study by Silverman Research (n=644+) indicate that there are four main barriers to increased adoption of social technologies in organizations: lack of knowledge and understanding, unprepared leadership, fear, and the absence of a well-grounded business case. This post highlights those findings and offers recommendations for overcoming the barriers. It also provides a link to a free report with details on the research and its results.

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

 

A Digital Era Brand Should…

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

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

 

Why We Need a New Brand Identity

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

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

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

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

We are a global, multi-disciplinary professional community whose members represent organizations of all types and sizes in all economic sectors. Our mission is to help these individuals and their organizations function more efficiently and effectively in the Digital Era. Going beyond marketing/branding, sales, public relations and customer service, we primarily focus on the internal applications and implications of social and digital technologies, particularly in terms of the opportunities and challenges they create for employees, leaders, and organizational functioning. Focal topics include risk management, strategy, governance, organizational structure and design, employee engagement, and all aspects of human capital management including job design, talent management, compensation, training and development, internal communication and collaboration, etc.  In addition to addressing changes that have immediate and direct impacts on organizations, we also explore general social and economic trends that have longer-term or indirect impacts.

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

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

Digital Era Adaptation in 2013: A Long and Winding Road

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

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

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

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

As always, I welcome your comments and questions.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

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Click here for an excerpted list of my 2012 hopes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But for me above all else, we must educate.

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

The advance of social and digital technologies continues unabated. We witnessed dramatic changes in 2012, and the anticipated changes in 2013 promise to be equally profound. This post provides resources that capture some of the key trends and predictions and offers nine bottom-line insights about what these trends mean for both individuals and organizations.

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Although we tend to emphasize personal resolutions and goals at the beginning of each new year, there is value in establishing professionally-oriented priorities as well. With that in mind, I’d like to share some of the resources I’ve gathered about social and digital technology trends and offer my thoughts about what these trends mean for professionals in all functional areas, at all career stages, and in organizations of all types and sizes (in other words, everyone!). Armed with this knowledge and insight, I hope folks will give serious consideration to how they will bridge the “digital divides” in their professional lives to enhance both their own technological competencies and those of the individuals, groups and organizations with which they work.

Have you established any specific technology-oriented goals for 2013? If so, I’d love to hear them. I also welcome links to other resources on trends and predictions for the year ahead, as well as additional insights.

Thanks!

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

Coming Up: In the next few weeks I’ll be revisiting some of the issues I covered in early 2012, including digital technology aspirations for the year ahead, the “ROI question,” and the need for training and education to enhance digital competencies. I'll also be sharing new ideas about some of the things individuals and organizations need to think and do to be more successful with digital technology in 2013 and beyond. Please check back or subscribe to the SMinOrgs S.M.A.R.T. Blog to be notified when those posts are published.

 

The Bottom Line for Individuals and Organizations

Let's begin with the end - what the trends and predictions shared below mean for you, your peers and leaders, and the organizations of which you're a part...

1. In case you’re still wondering, the Digital Era is not coming, and it’s not just getting started. It’s HERE.

2. While many new technology trends, like public social media platforms and mobile technology, have reached a certain maturity level, there is still significant upside potential with respect to both growth and opportunity. We are nowhere near saturation.

3. New technologies, platforms and tools, as well as new applications for existing technologies and tools, are being developed Every. Single. Second. Every. Single. Day. And there is no end in sight. Truly the only constant is change.

4. Technology development and adoption may happen first and fastest in the individual consumer space, but they eventually reach and spread throughout organizations.

5. There is a convergence among four main technology movements: social software, mobile devices and access, cloud and network computing, and data analytics. Individually, each one of these movements is incredibly powerful. Together, they have the potential to create dramatic transformations.

6. Now more than ever it’s incumbent upon organizational leaders to be focused on the future and to operate with a big-picture, wholistic, strategic perspective. Change is happening too fast and in too many different dimensions, and falling too far behind could ultimately be disastrous.

7. Even more importantly, leaders of all types must have at least a high-level understanding of how social and digital technologies work. Lacking that understanding can be viewed as irresponsible – and possibly even a breach of their fiduciary responsibilities.Leaders who don't see value in pursuing the opportunities presented by new technologies must still be prepared to manage the unavoidable challenges and risks.

8. The Digital Divide is increasingly being defined by lack of knowledge and use rather than lack of access. Professionals at all levels and at all career stages who are socially savvy and digitally engaged will reap both direct and indirect rewards, especially as the differences between them and their less-savvy peers grow. Being a “digital dinosaur” is a luxury few people can afford.

9. Individuals and organizations should no longer assume that an LIY (Learn It Yourself) approach to developing digital competencies is an effective strategy (if it ever was). People need help to climb their learning curves efficiently and effectively – and providing that help in both structured and unstructured ways is a critical investment that will pay dividends in both the short term and over time. We have to stop thinking about technology education and training as an (unnecessary) expense.

 

General Social and Digital Technology Trends

Mary Meeker's Latest Must-Read Presentation on the State of the Web. Call me a geek, but I look forward to this annual summation from the Kleiner Perkins partner. The 88-slide deck offers a great snapshot of Digital Era realities and possibilities.

The Future of Digital. A 137-slide deck of trends in digital media created by Henry Blodget and his team at Business Insider to kick off IGNITION: Future of Digital conference in the fall. Even when you are aware of how drastically and rapidly things are changing, some of the data is still mind boggling - especially when it’s represented visually!

Social Media around the World 2012. This 129-slide deck from InSites Consulting provides “insights on the status of social media and more than 2.000 facts & figures about social media in 19 countries. Topics cover main adoption and usage, interactions of consumers with brands, impact of branded conversations, evolution of mobile and the opportunities for structural collaboration between consumers and brands.”

Nielsen’s Social Media Report 2012. A 15-page ebook from NM Incite (a joint venture with McKinsey) that mixes text and visuals to provide a series of snapshots on topics ranging from the global social consumer to social TV and social care.

 

Technology Trends and Predictions for Organizations

Although the focus in these pieces is on commercial enterprises, many of the ideas and implications can be extended to organizations of all types and sizes in other sectors as well.

The 2012 IBM Tech Trends Report. This report is based on a survey of more than 1,200 IT and business professionals, as well as 250 academics and 450 students, throughout the world. The bottom line… four pivotal information technologies are rapidly reshaping how enterprises operate: mobile technology, business analytics, cloud computing and social business.

Forrester – Cloud Predictions for 2013. The 14 predictions in this post nicely reflect the fact that cloud computing is coming of age. A related post on the Cisco blog – Six Predictions for Cloud Collaboration in 2013 – provides a nice complement to the Forrester predictions.

The Leading Indicators of Social Business Maturity in 2012. Although I think his numbers and estimations are too optimistic, the underlying ideas and trends that Dion Hinchcliffe addresses are spot-on. The piece also provides links to additional resources. He followed it up recently with Sizing up Social Business for 2012.

The Can't-Miss Social Media Trends For 2013. Ryan Holmes, the CEO of HootSuite, makes six predictions about the kinds of growth and changes we can expect in the year ahead. In 5 Ways Social Media Will Change The Way You Work in 2013, he offers his take on some of the ways in which social media will impact the workplace.

 

Digital Era Leadership

The World in 2013: A Top Ten for Business Leaders. This Economist article is a must read for everyone, not just leaders - and certainly not just business leaders. Seven of the ten trends involve social and digital technologies in some way, and their impacts potentially affect organizations of all types and sizes.

Social Media And The Boardroom: Critical Questions Directors Need To Ask. This Fast Company article offers specific suggestions that reflect the fact that “social media are no longer novel stakeholder and consumer outreach tools; they are the new normal in the modern business operations environment.”

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!).

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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

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

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

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

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

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Medieval Help Desk with English Subtitles
Posted November 30, 2012

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.

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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

Human Capital and Career Management in the Digital Era: Three Foci

Earlier this summer I gave three presentations (two free webinars, one conference session) that focused on the intersection between social media and other digital technologies and human capital management, from both individual and organizational perspectives:

• Recruiting in the Digital Era: Guidance for HR Professionals, Recruiters, and Hiring Managers (HR.com webinar, June 14, 2012)
• Career Management in the Digital Era (Forte Women MBA's Conference, June 30, 2012)
• Social Media Policies and More: Checklist Guidance for Managing Digital Era Risks (HR.com webinar, July 10, 2012)

The sections below provide brief introductions to and comments about each session. You can view the embedded decks directly or access (and download) them via the SMinOrgs SlideShare channel.

As always, I hope you find these resources valuable, and I welcome your feedback.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

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Recruiting in the Digital Era

On June 14, 2012 at 1:30 pm ET, I led a free webcast for HR.Com enttitled Recruiting in the Digital Era: Guidance for HR Professionals, Recruiters, and Hiring Managers.

You can vew the slides below or on the SMinOrgs SlideShare channel.

I'm happy to report this webcast was very successful. Here is a link to a recording of it. You must join HR.com to access the recording, but membership is free.

 

Recruiting in the Digital Era: Guidance for HR Professionals, Recruiters, and Hiring Managers

View more presentations from Social Media in Organizations

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Career Management in the Digital Era

On June 29, 2012 I gave a presentation at Forte Foundation's MBA Women's Conference entitled Career Management in the Digital Era. The attendees were extremely engaged and asked lots of great questions.

You can vew the slides below or on the SMinOrgs SlideShare channel.

After I uploaded the deck to SlideShare, it was "hot" on both Facebook and LinkedIn and was featured on SlideShare's home page for a while. It was also reshared fairly widely on both platforms, as well as Twitter, and continues to be viewed and downloaded regularly. I'm glad folks find it valuable!

 

Related Resources

Dressing for Success in Cyberspace:Giving Yourself a Digital Make-Over (S.M.A.R.T. Blog post)

Dressing for Success in Cyberspace: Giving Yourself a Digital Make-Over (Forte blog post)

Additional related resources are included in both of the above posts, as well as at the end of the slide deck.

 

Career Management in the Digital Era

View more presentations from Social Media in Organizations

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Social Media Policies and More

On July 10, 2012 I presented a free webcast for HR.com entitled Social Media Policies and More: Checklist Guidance for Managing Digital Era Risks, which I'm happy to report was very well received.

You can access the archived recording of the session here. You have to join HR.com to view the recording, but membership is free.

You can also view the presentation deck below or on the SMinOrgs SlideShare channel.

After I uploaded the deck to SlideShare, it was "hot" on both Facebook and LinkedIn and was featured on SlideShare's home page for a while. I'm glad to see the topic resonated with folks!

 

Related Resources

This presentation was adapted from this S.M.A.R.T. Blog post by the same name, which was an updated version of my 2011 post entitled Social Media Polices: Necessary but not Sufficient. Additional resources are also included at the end of the slide deck.

 

Social Media Policies and More: Checklist Guidance

View more presentations from Social Media in Organizations

Last Week on @SMinOrgs IV

Here is the latest installment in our weekly blog post that recaps some of the most interesting content and exciting activity in the @SMinOrgs Twitter account from the preceding week. It’s written by our Twitter co-manager, Lizz Farmer, and is intended to share the @SMinOrgs Twitter activity more broadly and entice more folks to follow us. Plus, Lizz is a hoot (no pun intended)! We welcome your feedback.

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This is the fourth installment of “Last Week on @SMinOrgs,” written by our Twitter co-manager Lizz Farmer (aka "- epf") (click here for the first installment and an explanation of this new feature). I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

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Hope everyone is enjoying these recaps.  If you’re not following us yet - @SMinOrgs on Twitter - you’d best remedy that RIGHT THIS SECOND, because you’re missing out!

 

Trending Tweets

6 Must-haves for Every Enterprise Social RFP | Social Media Today 

Social media is not just marketing – and it’s time everyone figured this out.  And according to this article from Social Media Today, “only 23% of Social Strategists have a formalized program with long term direction.”  Whaaaaaaat, you may be thinking. Seriously, we are definitely thinking.  There’s also a link at the end to the full report.

 

Battle of the sexes: Who’s winning the social media war? | Ideas@Innovations

This Washington Post piece was a nice little gem, showing us one place the women are dominating.  According to DigitalFlashNYC, over ½ of social media users overall are the ladies.  64% of Twitter uses are female, but don’t worry guys, you still get to win something.  The dudes overwhelm on LinkedIn and even Reddit (makes sense – memes are clearly a male thing  :)  ), and a whopping 71% of Google+ users are male. 

 

The End of the Cold Call | via LI post by @brickandclick

So much time, so little insight; it’s not called Smokin Hot Calling for a reason. Salesforce tells us how to gauge interest properly by researching, reviewing your available social channels for as much info as possible beforehand, and personalizing the experience.  If you're tired of hearing the click of the dreaded hang-up, this product might be worth a look-see. 

 

Twitter for Rookies (& More): 4 Guides (& More) | Access to all our recent Twitter advice (& more) - from one location

Twitter for Rookies is still popular, and now all our most recent Twitter info is in one convenient location, because we love you so much.

 

We’re #SMOPin!

This week’s POTD (Pin of the Day) highlight is for What We See Wednesday - check it out here featuring bananas & QR codes: http://ow.ly/cdWNx. Okay, even fruit is getting into social media.  There’s simply no excuse for the rest of us.

Follow our hashtag  #SMOPin (SMinOrgs on Pinterest) for more great social media and digital technology visuals.

 

Retweets of Note

From SalesforceRadian (@radian6):

Ten Ways to Improve Your Nonprofit's Social Media Strategy. http://bit.ly/ONYB7d 

 

From NonProfit MediaWorks (@NonprofitMediaW):

NYTimes: YouTube Offers a Way to Blur Faces, Protecting Identities in Videos http://nyti.ms/OHuBcm

 

Parting Thought

As always, please give us your thoughts and suggestions on the @SMinOrgs Twitter feed.  We’re passionate and committed to providing you with excellent, quality material that makes your day, and one way for us to succeed is to hear how it’s working for you.  So, cough it up! 

- epf