Organizations are jumping into social media without being  ready for what might happen. You ask what might happen? A lot of things could happen and many you are not ready to handle.

In order to get ready before you leap you really need to assess whether your organization would be consider “social”. The people who could answer that question best are your employees then your customers. However if you’ve never really asked those people whether you are good at building and keeping relations then you might consider assessing that before you jump into social media.

To assess whether the organization is ready means to check three things that will give you keen insights into whether or not you are ready. These three things include:

1. People: How do they really feel about their relationship with the organization. People being suppliers, employees, customers and prospects. You might be surprised at what they might say and that is if you are ready to listen.
2. Process: Your organization has many processes that either enable or constraint people from communicating. How well are those processes performing? How would you know? Your organization also has processes, spoken and unspoken, which say trust, collaboration and the tone of your communications. Do you know what these processes are? What do the processes say to the issues of trust, collaboration and relations?
3. Culture: The BIG UMBRELLA of stuff that reflects the organizations trust, relations and mind-set that speaks the sentiment of managements view of its people, internal and external.
4. Tools: Does your organization have the right tools to efficiently and effectively communicate? Does your organization provide people with tools to improve processes, relations and make changes that enhance the culture and its market sentiment? How would you know? Do you know? Not knowing is a clear indicator of not being ready.

Besides understanding the issues of people, process, culture and tools the overriding issue is one of methods.  By what methods do you manage, communicate, measure and make needed adjustments? Methods reflect managements knowledge and if you are using the wrong methods well you’ll get the wrong results. The method of management has evolved and is constantly changing with the aim of improvement. When markets shift methods have to change because the old method simply cannot respond or satisfy the market demands.

New Methods Require New Knowledge

You cannot adjust to revolutionary change by applying old thinking. Social technology is changing everything because everything is fueled by communications. Social media is communications but a new method that requires new knowledge if you want to tap into the power of effective and efficient communications. Who and what is communicating to you and about you. Everything and everyone.

This new method  is more powerful than any other communications medium in the history of mankind. Why? Because it has reach and influence beyond traditional media and is grounded in trust, relations and honesty. It appeals to the very fabric of human nature and avoids anti-social behavior. Anti-social behavior is when your organization constrains people with bad processes, a closed and controlled culture, a lack of tools to do things right and management methods that lack knowledge and common sense.

You may discount all this and ignore its importance to your performance meaning your bottom line. Then again if you don’t understand these simply things then you are likely to discount them as irrelevant and unimportant to getting you the results you so desperately want. By the way, how are your results?  If you want them to improve then you’ll have to change the methods otherwise nothing will improve. Get it?

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Chris Voss shows  you the new Complete Guide To Google Wave. Here is his link to learn more.
Link to Complete Guide To Google Wave.

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The “voice” of an organization is indicative of its culture. Organizational culture is an idea in the field of Organizational studies and management which describes the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values (personal and cultural values) of an organization. It is defined  as “the specific collection of values and norms  shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization.”^[1]

Notice the definition emphasizes that culture controls the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization. Interaction between people is largely enabled by communications. Communications reflected by attitudes, actions and the tone of conversations. Now the attitudes, actions and the tone of conversations has become “open source” fueled by the power of social media. Open source communications show an organizations culture for the world to see and experience.

What Does The World See?

The market of conversations seek value created from an exchange of communications. Values are reflected by relational attributes and the context of content that creates an affinity to a market. The affinity creates an open source culture driven by trust fueled by shared experiences.  The culture of social media is described as the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values (personal and cultural values) of people connecting with like-minded “crowds” who offer free value exchanges.  There is no one person or organization trying to control the way they interact with each other.

Social media affords the crowds to interact without the oversight or control of any one organization.  Perplexed by this phenomena traditional organizations jump into social media not realizing that their own culture will become transparent and the market of conversations will expose the character of their culture. If the organizations  culture isn’t “open” then it cannot say trust and value to the market of conversations.  Subsequently the market will not engage because the culture of social media rejects any attempt to control or manipulate the conversations.

Magnifying The Need For Change

Organizational cultural change has evolved for decades. Studies after studies prove the value of an “open vs. closed” culture and evidence abounds from those organizations who have made the shift. Awareness of an organizations cultural attributes are  communications. People share their experiences with other people. People are the power of any organization and unless  empowered they will feel powerless.

Empowered people represent enormous power. Unified for a cause, a mission or a common goal people can and will do uncommon things. Uncommon things are about achievement of the impossible, unexpected and not planned but realized. On the fringes of uncommon things is innovation. Innovations comes from creating ideas that solve common problems and then creates new solutions that serve a market.

Social media affords the means for people to unite and exchange ideas, knowledge and creates solutions for the “crowds”. For any business to succeed they will need to learn and understand why this happens, how it happens and who makes it happen. Doing so is the solution to create innovation which markets will consume and  create new capital.  However unless business leaders can first change their own culture they cannot tap into the “open source” culture of social media. Attempting to do so without fixing their own culture is a direct path to failure. Get it?

What say you?

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And now LinkedIn,  the #1 business network, has struck a deal to incorporate Twitter into its network.

Claire Cain Miller writes in the New York Times today: Tweets Are Coming to LinkedIn. On Tuesday, LinkedIn and Twitter announced a partnership to bring tweets to LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals. This comes on the heels of announcements by Microsoft and Google that they would incorporate tweets into their search results.

The partnership with LinkedIn affirms Twitter’s role as a network for professional conversation. More than social sites like Facebook, people use Twitter to keep abreast of professional news and share links to articles about their industries.

“Twitter is not only a massively open platform, but also it’s a place where there’s a tremendous amount of professional information already being shared, and we wanted to be sure that was coming to our LinkedIn user base,” said Allen Blue, LinkedIn’s co-founder and vice president of product strategy.

LinkedIn’s 51 million members will now be able to send status updates — such as the fact that they are looking for an analyst on a certain topic, or posting a job opening — to Twitter on a case-by-case basis, and vice versa. People will also be able to add a section to their LinkedIn profile that contains their most recent tweets and view other people’s tweets when searching LinkedIn.

Peneration Fuels Adoption and Learning Curves

People and businesses are just beginning to learn the power  social distribution facilitates content that is in context to their markets affinity.   While a large percent of the marketplace has yet to engage developments like LinkedIn incorporating Twitter into its network will fuel awareness, attention, attraction and broaden the affinity to main street business users.

There is still a lot to learn about all this social stuff but one thing is certain. It isn’t going away and it is likely to disrupt markets, organizations and people unaware.  Start learning and never stop.

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Organizational culture as been studied, talked about and criticized for years. It seems that the very subject of managing culture is a significant challenge for any organization regardless of size. The very nature of “culture” is representative of the people, process and structure of any organization. Now any organizations culture just became transparent because of the reach and empowerment offered from social technologies..

Luis Suarez writes: “To me, social computing within the enterprise is about everything, but the tools. It’s a philosophical and social corporate movement, a lifestyle, a new way of connecting and interacting with people, both inside and outside of the firewall; one where the main focus is not on the technology itself, but on the people behind it.

Yes, I’m talking about culture. Indeed, it’s all about a cultural shift, one that is starting to take the corporate world by storm at multiple levels, going from a grassroots bottom-up approach all the way to a top down executive level. If you ask me, I would even venture to state that is unstoppable at this point in time. We are probably far too immersed in it already to just want to back out of it altogether. So if it were just about technology itself, we probably could have done it already, but since the change is much more profound, like I said, I don’t think there is a way back. And that’s a good thing.”

Back To The Future?

Luis makes some very good points in his article and his statement of “since the change is much more profound, like I said, I don’t think there is a way back. And that’s a good thing” speaks volumes to the challenges ahead for management. In an earlier article titled “Social Media And Management” we said “Business leaders need to consider whether management should understand and use social media to impact organizational performance. The current market sentiment suggest that management would rather delegate the function of social media to others and not assume the responsibility themselves.” This sentiment is dangerous grounds for organizations either using or considering use of social media. Dangerous because they don’t understand the cultural impact which will unfold before their eyes.

Cultural change is a knowledge domain which requires keen insights into organizational behavior and what drives it.  It takes special training and knowledge to manage through the maze of issues needing consideration and a roadmap about how to make changes effectively. The biggest barrier to change has always been and always be management. Today’s management disciplines lack the knowledge and skills required to change. Without help they cannot change. Maybe the first change will be either new management or enlightened management.

What say you?

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The impact of social technology on business as usual is and will continue to be profound. Profound in that social technology fuels never-ending change caused by the markets of conversations. These markets represent intelligence that is transparent, fluid and engaging by crowds of suppliers, employees and consumers.

Change is now fueled by the rate of interest and the rate of change caused by interactive conversations from everywhere and everyone.

Instead of the old model of change, from the inside out, the new model of change is from the outside in. Markets are shifting at the speed of a mouse click. These markets represent the rate of interest change (both economic interest and consumer interest) and the interest is changing based on the consumption of information and knowledge.

The voice of the customer used to be analyzed based on old feedback mechanisms and survey’s which were poorly designed and time-consuming. Today the voice of the customer is instant, transparent and designed by the content and context of open and transparent conversations. The new world of instant communications controlled and influenced by the end consumer is the outside force forcing fueling organizational changes for those businesses wishing to thrive or survive.  However, the pace and strength of these outside forces is changing the very change models used before by the leading management consulting firms and guru’s on organizational change.

McKinsey, one of the top management consulting firms in the world, is even changing their own approach to the creation and implementation of organizational change models. The video below illustrates their commentary on changes fueled by the current technological revolution. The irony is that the current rate of technological change is not static but, as they show, revolutionary.  The irony of a “revolution” is that is not only fueled by change but its outcomes create even more change and it doesn’t seem as though the rate of change and interest in new technology will ever become static.

Organizations will have to learn change is now a permanent process and the only thing that should be managed is the rate in which you adjust to it. Not adjusting or accepting that change is permanent means you’ll be left by those that do. Get it?

What say you?

Lenny Mendonca: How Can You Make The Most Of Technological Revolution?

Lenny Mendonca

Chairman, McKinsey Global Institute

The chairman of McKinsey Global Institute analyzes how technology is catalyzing business successes—and failures.

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As an Engineer, my respect for the Advertising/Marketing/PR, as an industry, is diminishing daily.  I see what is gorged behind the curtain and I see what is barfed in front to the curtain.  The degree of hypocrisy defies social responsibility.

While many Marketing and PR professionals have a deep commitment to social values and the empowerment of people and their communities, many also see society as a big fat consumption machines whose collective minds can be mapped and channeled into “basic-needs” reactions designed to ultimately meet Wall Street priorities over social priorities.

Meet your maker

It is also not surprising that the advertising industry is also on the front line of social media where savvy gamers call themselves strategists, gurus, and experts over the very game that they cannot control.  They are quick to define “Social Media Innovation” as new ways to penetrate the hearts, minds, and eyeballs of people and their paychecks.

Social Media Innovation

The REAL “Social Media Innovation” is actually a means for communities to better discern the crappy products from the great products.  The so-called Guru’s make a living pitching manure because those are the products that need the most expensive social media strategy.

As such, advertising – as an industry – has devolved further in its dependence upon the existence of overpriced substandard products, idle and complacent audience, and insecure people living in divided communities.  Almost every square inch of available land, air, and mind space in America is polluted with advertising. It’s everywhere.  Guess what, nobody – absolutely nobody, wants to see it.  Innovate that.

Innovation is Disruption

What most social media Ad-strategists fail to see, despite their formidable ability to create disruptions, is that their very existence is about to be disrupted beyond recognition, if not eliminated entirely.  This tsunami on the horizon is a financial instrument that manifest in the integration and capitalization of human knowledge.  They don’t have a clue what we’re talking about, they don’t have a clue what’s about to hit them in a few short years – a virus beyond description whose hypocrisy defies social irresponsibility.

By the time you see it, it’s too late.

Clayton Christensen, author of the book, Innovator’s Dilemma, identifies this condition in great detail:  Disruptions, by definition, are rarely seen by the victim until it’s too late to respond.  The disruption that is currently rising up against the advertising industry is apocalyptic in it’s simplicity.  A few will survive – those who see it coming.  Here it is:

The last Mile of Social Media

Good companies with good products will put their advertising budget into an “affinity pool”.  The money will be distributed directly to the top social media mavens that dominate the affinity space thereby rewarding them for doing exactly what they would do anyway – they will talk about their life experiences, and the products that enhance it, to their galaxy of family, friends, and followers.

Game Over

Pay the mommy bloggers, auto enthusiasts, Pet lovers, sports clubbers, and local fashionistas directly from a pool of money insulated from ‘payola’.  Let people earn a living doing what they do best – building community.   The result will be an astonishing increase in social innovation, entrepreneurship, community development and economic growth – not to mention infinite R&D, business intelligence, and the decimation of low quality competition. No ad agency or PR firm in the world could match the empowerment value of such a simple financial instrument.

If you can’t see this, your days are numbered.

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I received the following message from a connection through Linkedin.  Hello, My latest position at an ad agency came to a close this week, as the company went out of business. I am forwarding you my LinkedIn profile in hopes that you or someone you know may be aware of job opportunities in advertising, marketing or social media. This request made me think about the “Agency business” and why is might be failing for those unaware.

Advertising agencies are known for the creative skills in creating images and messages that get people’s attention. They are also known for creating integrated ad campaigns using every kind of media imaginable. A lot of talented folks have created some of the best ads known on the planet.

Then Social Media Disrupts The Process!

There is a clear shift from mass media that creates attention to conversational media that keeps our attention. The difference is in the form and context of media, content in every form. You’d have to be living in a cave not to know how social media is changing market dynamics for every single industry. The dynamics have flipped from push to pull as have the thinking behind each underlying methods.  Agencies who do not understand and master the methods will quickly fail to exist. Why? The anwser is simply because the market is demanding new methods which requires new thinking.

Is The Thinking Old Or New?

Renee Cassard writes “With social media, the importance of  interaction has resurfaced. SM provides a vehicle in which the local, more personalized business transaction can be reintroduced into the mix. Previous mandates of telephone scripts and corporate liability statements have rendered these transactions dormant in more recent years. The introduction of social media gives corporations a wonderful opportunity to find someone who believes in them to represent their company. This is good for internal morale and for bringing the human element into the mix again. It engages consumers in more authentic, less scripted conversation. Mind you, this doesn’t mean a business should overlook the development of a social media strategy. Quite the opposite, actually. It simply means that in today’s world, social media gives companies the chance to value those who work for them and have passion about their company, products, and what they do. Who better than these people to interact with your consumer, or former “receiver” turned “sender” of your company’s message? “

“In the end, simple and classical business interactions are what lie at the foundations of social media, and ultimately will ensure its ongoing success. So when a client asks you about the “new” thing – social media – you might prompt them to consider whether it really is something scary and new, or something tried and true!”

Renee says it well. The essence of social media is relational rather than institutional. Relational communications has been the fiber of human interaction since the beginning of time. What has happened is that the market, and the thinking behind the market, has gotten away from relations and chased “tricks of the trade” aimed at getting our attention.

Our attention has shifted back to what is natural, relational and meaningful. Sometimes going “back to the future” means having to learn what makes relationships work.  While being creative is part of the equation a meaningful conversation is the entire equation.

Agencies that don’t get this will die a fast death as will the companies they serve. Maybe agencies need help understanding this.  Most agency web sites do not reflect any understanding of social media. Most agencies cannot even begin to explain social media. Most agencies have little experience using social media for themselves or their clients.  That being the case most agencies are in trouble.

What is your opinion?

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How many times have you been asked “Can you explain social media to us?“  Then you have to think about how to explain the entire (r)evolution of the internet and its present state.  Try doing that and you’ll lose most people’s attention.

It has been said that “pictures speak a thousand words“. As a consultant I have always found that if you can provide a picture illustration and a simple story to explain something very complex then you have helped a client understand something they need.

Given the consistent questions we get asked we decided to try and  provide  pictures  that hopefully convey the message and help people “connect the dots“. The illustrations in this post and the following dialog are aimed at explaining why the web is critical for business success.

The Story And The Illustrations

Everyone seeks solutions to problems. Problems represent opportunities for businesses whose product or service provide solutions to problems. When people have a problem or desire to fulfill  where do 95% of them go to find the solutions? On the the web or to friends and family for advice and recommendations.

Every day of the year there are over 250 million searches done on Google.  In other words people are looking for solutions that address a multitude of issues. The greatest library of solutions is the web. If you are in the back of the library you are not likely to be found.

So when people seek solutions if they can’t find you  they are not likely going to consider you as a solution to use, whether a product or service.  If your web presence is weak (not properly built) and worse if your content is anti-social you are not likely to not only not be found but to be considered clueless if found.  Last but not least if you are not  engaging the market with relevant and relative conversations (content)  then those seeking solutions will not find your value because no one is discussing it (peer to peer).

Thus the critical path to commerce is to be found and be noted as a solution provider or an organization whose products and services people talk about.  However, in order to do so you must understand what all this social stuff is about. Using social media (the internet) effectively demands mind-sets and capabilities that are unfamiliar and sometimes even counter intuitive to previous management, marketing and advertising methods.

David Gillespie writes: If both the web & media are inherently social, & if business must have a presence online, then business must have a social element. To not have that is to fore go both logic & opportunity.

Now your challenge is figuring out the how, what, where and who you want to reach and providing them value they can use  and share with others. The consumer market has shifted from mass media to media that provides the most meaningful value. Meaningful value is relational while traditional mass media is not. For your business to survive and compete it must learn how to build relational value and use the internet to propagate that value effectively.

So What Should You Do First?

The first step for any business is to learn and apply new thinking about its relationship with the market it aims to serve, both internal and external. To learn one must have relevant and relative data that provides insights as to how well your business relates to  the market it is trying to serve.

The illustration on the left outlines critical research that must be conducted in order for your organization to gain an understanding and learn the critical skills and thinking needed to better serve your market. In other words first you must listen to understand before you try and engage with any market.

Without having the relevant data concerning how, where, who and what are your markets interest, needs and desires you cannot effectively provide a reason as to why the market should pay attention to you.

Once you have this data and insight you can then begin to learn what meaningful value you can create for the market and give them that value for free. Use free to pull the market to a higher value proposition they will pay for. Giving free knowledge that is meaningful  is considered meaningful, valuable and relational.

If the knowledge you give is in context with your markets interest then you just increased the probability of a transaction which is what you ultimately want. The difference today is how  you get what you want is by giving others what they need, when they need it and enabling them to find it at the click of a mouse or from their friends.   If they can’t find it or their friends aren’t suggesting it well then you lose.

The internet has now become the place to be found and to create value people are seeking. To not understand and use it effectively is akin to saying “I don’t care how our market behaves”.

How is that for an explanation?

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It seems that online and off line conversations are consumed with measuring the ROI from social media.  Much of the dialog is a waste of time and focused on the wrong thing. Yet organizations seem to be demanding a measure of ROI from this thing we all call social media.

All businesses represent a system of inputs, processes and outputs. Most businesses measure output, or results and said measures are purely financial results. The irony is that results do not tell you what may be wrong with the process or the inputs into a process. Results just tell you what you’ve produced as a result of the inputs and processes you’ve used. Social media does produce results but all those results can tell you is whether your inputs and processes were operating effectively. To change the result you must focus on both the inputs and the processes. But who measures those? Not many if any.

A Problem With Thinking About ROI

If you use existing social media metrics most of them will tell you about the reach of your message and its popularity with the market of followers. Reach and popularity may not be the right measure of effectiveness and efficiency. Getting reach is easy thanks to the power of social technology. Popularity only equates to well being popular. The question is are you popular with the right audience whom has an interest in your conversations or an interest in a relationship. Relationships beget opportunities for a transaction if the basis of a conversation has an affinity to the markets needs and wants. Getting lots of followers, connections and massive reach could create results that are meaningless. Yet many organizations measure these results (outputs) and use them to justify their presence, their efforts and the time and money spent doing so. It is a lot like the days of measuring advertising and marketing effectiveness which was justified by a 3% or less response.

So How Do You Measure ROI?

If you understand systemic thinking you know that all results are produced by the quality of your input and related processes. For social media the input is reflected by your thinking. The process is distribution of communications. Fundamentally it is that simply and should be looked at simply. On the other hand the input is what you communicate to whom, where, when, how and why.  Now those elements of social media aren’t so simple and if they were everyone would be applying the thinking behind each element and creating massive ROI, which they are not.

The questions of what,where, when, how and why are deep and wide and require critical thinking. Critical thinking is purposeful and reflective judgment about what to believe or what to do[1] in response to observations, experience, verbal or written expressions, or arguments. Critical thinking might involve determining the meaning and significance of what is observed or expressed. It seems that today most organizations are chasing social media ROI without even considering whether there is adequate justification to accept the conclusion as true.  Subsequently everyone is consumed with measuring the results without thinking through the inputs and processes that produce results that can go beyond your expectations.

Unless you think critically about the ROI from social media your thinking is not likely to produce any results. Thinking is the input, communications is the process and well the results reflect the quality of your thinking. The quality of your thinking is reflected by what you know or don’t know.

The web requires a new knowledge domain that most businesses do not have. Knowledge about what? If people are looking for solutions will they find you? When they find you will your web site reflect conversations that enhance relationship? Does your content engage and provide value? The market will decide that is less then ten seconds. Get it?

What say you?

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