Jasbinder's blog

The enterprise isn't ready for people

A few weeks ago JP Rangaswami wrote some bullet points about groups. The penultimate of ten points was the following:

9. The people aren’t ready for enterprises. And the enterprises aren’t ready for the people.

Engagement is about opening up the discussion so that employees can do what the generally want to do - provide efficient support internally and externally, and great customer service. Maybe people are ready for the enterprise to give them real influence, but most people most days will have a thought or an idea about how an aspect of the job could be improved. I think the people are ready for the enterprise.

Among the comments to JP's muse was the following from Stephen Collins: "I see enterprises...trying to treat people as if the dark satanic mill was a possibility in the 21st Century, expecting them to come in and work mindlessly and unquestioningly in their cubes for eight hours a day."

So what remains is the latter statement from JP. The myriad ways that messages are distributed now means that the conversation has already opened up from an employee perspective. The question following from JP's statement is, 'How can companies credibly and permanently become a voice in that discussion?'

 

Learning with Shel and CBS

There are many FUD-related reasons for companies to hesitate about social media, and while sometimes it seems that the leading lights are too far ahead of reality to be relevant, along comes Shel Israel's recent experience on FastCompany TV.

Here's someone who has tried something new for him, and understandably is learning as he goes along. No big deal? Like 24-hour rolling news, everything has the potential to be a big deal in the blogosphere. And like the stand-up blogger he is, Shel has openly accepted the feedback and moved on. He even points to Tyme White, who says that Shel "is his own best story of how social media can impact a company and a brand."

And that's the point for companies. They may think that they can avoid getting involved in the conversation, but that doesn't stop the conversation or its impact on a brand. As Kami Huyse says, you can't control the conversation, but you can - and should - take part.

Fast Company changed its business model and brought in Shel because the world changed. In comparison, CBS has buried its corporate head in the sand while the world keeps on turning. Rob Paterson warning is apt not just for CBS, but for companies who continue to wait for all the right answers: "Moving to this new world is NOT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY. It is about culture. If you are imbued with their old culture, it is unlikely that you can make the shift."

Trying is nearly always better than wondering what could have been.

Link love: The wisdom of UGC

Props to Niall Cook for a couple of video clips - one from Messrs Mitchell and Webb, and the other from the equally hilarious Jeremy Paxman, on user generated content and the value there of.

Engagement is the son of social media

I was reviewing the online output from the recent Forrestor marketing conference on 'Understanding your customers through engagement'.

Employee engagement has been in vogue for a couple of years now, though some companies continue to mistake success as rising engagement scores from a regualr survey.

The basis for engagement, according to speaker Brian Haven is:

1. Involvement
2. Interaction
3. Intimacy
4. Influence

Neat. Real engagement (love?)- be it for employees or customers - requires a relinquishing of power to a broader base in a co-ordinated manner. As David Deal of Razorfish says: Engagement transcends all...channels and tactics.

The linkage between social media, engagement and business success is a crucial relationship for companies to understand - for social media is not a set of tools - and embrace.

 

Link love: Obama, the Pope and social media

Props to Geoff Livingstone over at The Buzz Bin for his post about what Barack Obama might say to the Pope about social media during the latter's visit to Washington DC this week. Though the Pope may not join Twitter.

Banking and the wrong dice

The once venerable institution the International Monetary Fund has called on banks to disclose the sub-prime losses within 100 days. In the UK, the Chancellor claims the credit crunch is the most cataclysmic shaking of the economic equilibrium since the Great Depression. Or at least since the last time the financial markets reacted to an 'unforeseen' event.

The banking industry needs to get its house in order, no doubt. As Nassim Taleb posits about gambling with the wrong dice in Fooled by Randomness: the problem of probability is largely a matter of knowledge, not computation.

And so it was warming to read Joe McKendrick flag the 'Centre for Future Banking' project set up by MIT Media Laboratory and Bank of America. As Joe points out, some of the questions the five year effort will look at include:

• How can every customer be empowered with the knowledge and tools to take better control of their financial futures?
• How will banking interactions evolve as a customer’s physical and virtual worlds become completely intertwined?
• How will social networks and mobile platforms transform customers’ banking experiences, making it easier, more convenient, and better integrated with their daily lives?

The answers to these questions will shape not just the banking industry, but also help establish social media - still peripheral communications - into the corporate mainstream. As Taleb says: Getting the right assumptions may matter more than having a spohisticated model.

How far is there to go until companies have the right assumptions about social media? Read Richard Carpenter's take on 'newer' forms of corporate reporting among FTSE 100 companies. But progress elsewhere continues. The NY Times last week reported that the MySpace mindset had finally showed up in the office, and Google has a plan.

Recession communications

The economy remains in the news for all of the wrong reasons both here and in the US. Whether or not you think it will all end in tears, it is having a real impact on many things, including internal communication efforts within the enterprise.

Many communicators do not have a direct ability to influence budget decisions, but all should look into whether now is the right time to - as Andrew McAfee explains - "launch an effort to build an emergent social software platform."

Groundswell's groundswell

The volume around Groundswell - the new book from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research on social media - is getting louder.

Those lucky enough to have grabbed an advance copy are fulsome in their praise, and the book/blog/movement should help crystallise the thoughts of many individual and collective minds about social media.

Collectively, companies can position themselves on a scale between Purist and Corporatist - though, like economists, they will not stand out in the comfort of the middle ground.

On the individual front, Dan Greenfield has highlighted something vital: the authors of Groundswell, he says, believe FastLane hasn't revolutionised GM or changed the competitive dynamics. What it has done is revolutionise the communications process.

Dan goes on to ask: "Is it possible for a revolution in the communications process to change the competitive landscape?"

From a corporate communications perspective - and before John Cleese starts to draft Barack Obama's speeches - the answer is a powerful and permanent "Yes we can."

140 characters of potential

"Sorry I wrote you such a long note, I didn't have time to write you a short one."

Never underestimate the value of brevity. What, says, B.L. Ochman can deliver the following benefits to a business:

• a major source of business news
• a quicker way to find out what's important today than my feed reader
• a place to find out what the people I'm interested in are finding interesting
• a source of live blogging from conferences and other events
• an excellent source of experts on various technical topics
• a place to build relationships through common interests
• direct access to many of my business heroes
• a place to (selectively) pimp my blog posts
• an international IM platform
• a place to take a break around the virtual water cooler
• a lot of fun

Answers on a you know what.

If you aren't sure, let CommonCraft tell it like only they can, and if you do know, maybe you think it's overhyped.

Update 11/04/08: Number 10 is at it - props to Rob Paterson/FastForward

Social media's impact on the channel mix

The inevitable lag between external developments and enterprise adoption meant that it was not until the actual dot com bust that companies grasped the potential of Web1.0. But its place in the mix of communication channels alongside print and face-to-face was not clear, and many saw it as a trade-off between print and online.

Fast forward a few years: more and more companies are learning how social media in the enterprise could be rather useful. Again, there is uncertainty about where it sits in relation to other channels - an evolution of the corporate intranet with additional collaboration elements, a technological coup that casts the traditional intranet to history, or an approach that could rewrite the rulebook for all communication channels?

Cart and horse. Internal communicators need to know their audience, and one of the fundamental shifts in the past couple of years for communicators is the ability/neccessity to understand their audience as well as marketeers know their customers. Top-line functional/geographic distinctions from employee surveys are the bare minimum now. 

Seth Godin points out in How do I persuade you?: "Here's the thing: unlike every other species, human beings make decisions differently from one another. And the thing that persuades you is unlikely to be the thing that persuades the next guy. Our personal outlook is a lousy indicator of what works for anyone else."

Your audience is fragmented, information overload is a daily fact, the sources of information have exploded and, as a communicator, you have to revisit first principles to make a lasting connection.