Social Media - Inside Out

Innovation: Decentralized & Internally Networked

2012-04-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

How do you structure an organization to optimize innovation? What are the most effective innovation pathways and processes? Who is responsible for innovation?

Does any of that matter???

I recently participated in a conference on driving corporate innovation, and all of those business considerations - and a few more - were presented and discussed and analyzed. I think they miss the point.

Innovative organizations today no longer try to structure and schedule innovation. Instead, they respect the emergence of the individual within the organization, and they create a culture and environment that supports individual actions. According to Gartner, the "Managed Anarchy Model" yields significantly more great ideas over time than does the Conventional Model; natural selection rather than management selection.

Individual behavior and corporate culture are facing increasing dissonance. Gen Y has become famous for not following the established corporate rules, for being tethered to technology, for lack of loyalty to corporate employers. But Gen Yers are also actively involved in social issues; they want to follow their instincts and passions and creatively change the world. Aren't those great innovation characteristics? Corporations need to tap into that individual drive.

With the prevalence of social technologies outside the corporate walls, individuals have learned to find like-minded people outside the usual channels. They share ideas, pull information and insight from diverse groups, and create new partnerships as needed.

Individuals want to bring these characteristics into the workplace. They want to self-select ideas and communities for collaboration within corporate walls. Internal social platforms enable them to do so. They help organizations become social businesses, from the inside out.

Internal social technologies allow companies to decentralize innovation. Social technologies facilitate innovation. They drill holes in the silos. They enable fresh conversations and exchanges of ideas. And they are fluid.

IBM is at the forefront of using internal social technologies to drive innovation. Conversations and ideas are sparked by over 17,000 internal blogs, 1 million daily page views of internal wikis and internal information storing websites, employee profiles on IBM Connections, and 15,000,000 downloads of employee-generated videos/podcasts.

50 IBM innovation jams have occurred over the past 10 years. Back in 2006, IBM brought folks together in a jam to discuss more than 50 research projects in the company. Projects voted into the top 10 became incubator businesses funded with $100M.

IBM Smarter Planet sprang from grass-roots, community discussions.

Smaller organizations with more limited technologies can benefit as well. I worked with a medium-sized retail establishment that wanted to add social media to its marketing. We started, however, by implementing a simple, free internal social platform and creating a cross-functional, cross-department core social media team. Over the past 6 months, the cross-talk and new perspectives have dramatically accelerated innovation - from tactical improvements to the creation of an organization-wide "green" effort.

Internal social technology helps define innovation as a cultural norm and drive innovation into everyone's job. Employees behaving like individuals are the primary source of innovation. Let's not box them in.

Has internal social technology changed innovation for you?

Related posts of interest:
The Objective of Social Media is Lifestyle
Social Media and Innovation in IBM
IBM's Social Business Transformation

ROI of Internal Social Networks? Zero if the Network isn't Used

2012-03-12T08:00:00.001-04:00

Just about a year ago, I discussed the factors driving ROI of internal social media networks. But most companies are NOT realizing the benefits they expected. The reason is fairly simple.

Employees aren't showing up.

The InformationWeek 2012 study of enterprise social networking revealed that 87% of participants had an internal social network. Only 13% rated the usage success as excellent. The likelihood that a company viewed its success as average to poor? A chilling 62%.

What makes an internal social network successful? There are many details, approaches, and stories to success. Primarily, though, a company has to embrace the change that the network will both enable and cause. A social network functions most effectively within a social business; it does not attract adoption within the old, bureaucratic, staunchly hierarchical business models. What's critical to success and what standard thinking doesn't work? Here are my top 5:

Flexibility, not strategic goals - Having a strategy and an objective for implementing an internal social network is important, but flexibility is more important. By their very nature, social networks evolve and adapt and find their own reasons-to-be. Organizations too focused on achieving a specific goal, on determining ahead of time how the network will be used, tend to flounder. The social network becomes just another system that employees need to use; it becomes a burden rather than a benefit. Deloitte Australia, a winner of the Forrester Groundswell Award, began using Yammer because they thought it looked "cool." Three years later, Pete Williams, CEO Deloitte Digital, says "we're finding new value in the tool everyday."
Leadership, not grassroots - Social media is the tool of the 99%, and successful internal social networks flatten hierarchy. Social networks do not flourish under a command and control management model, but they do require leadership. The active involvement of senior executives is critical to the effectiveness and usage of the system. Unisys CEO Ed Coleman was an early adopter in the company, using the social network to communicate with employees, to listen, and to engage. His executive team quickly followed, and employees began to use the network and then began to develop new uses for it. Internal social networks, like external social networks, emphasize respect and collaboration across all levels. Leadership needs to be willing to engage with employees without fear. Deloitte Australia CEO Giam Swiegers talks about a first year analyst who challenged his point of view, and the debate was visible to all employees. Swiegers liked knowing what employees were thinking and appreciated having the opportunity to discuss the issues; the ability to engage with leadership drives loyalty in employees.
Organic Evolution, not controlled growth - Staying up-to-date with the latest in social media is a challenge; new applications and uses appear frequently, because users keep trying out their ideas - and some stick. It's the same with internal networks. Should an executive team have some idea of how a network might be used before implementation? Of course. But then let it evolve. "People are trying to rationalize, police, and control the tool," says Chris Laping, CIO of Red Robin restaurant chain, but "the power of information technology is sharing information. What we naturally do with systems is lock them down, which prevents us from sharing information." As more employees join a network, uses and needs also change. Smaller groups form around projects or interests; new connections drive new ideas. Users need to be able to adapt the network to meet their needs.
Communities of Interest, not just work - Employees with friends at work are happier and more productive (lots of data on this issue that I will spare you at the moment), and work issues are often intertwined with personal considerations. Many companies strictly limit internal social networks to looking up data, working with project teams, or posting official pronouncements. Yet communities of interest create friendships, help develop new policies and introduce new perspectives, and often both align with and drive corporate objectives. Deloitte Australia employees have created a variety of communities of interest, from a "Mums Group" to "Audit Specialists." At IBM, the gap between employee-produced content and corporate-produced content is large and still growing. Leaders need to be actively engaged with the network, but users need to have a strong hand in shaping it.
Operational Virtue - Less controversial than the 4 points above, but also important; an internal social network must operate well in 3 ways.

Ease of Use - If the system is not largely intuitive, if employees need a separate sign-on, or if the network does not integrate with e-mail and other critical enterprise platforms, employees will stay away. The internal social network must be user friendly and agile, not cumbersome.
Productivity - Social networks should improve the daily work of employees. Project teams might work more efficiently and with greater speed; employees might be able to locate information more easily; work flows might be streamlined. Not only should a social network create greater engagement and community, it should enable employees to be more productive.
Measurement - While the uses of a social network will morph over time, it is always important to measure the real business results. A McKinsey survey found that social business reduces time to market by 20% and increases the number of innovations by 20% on average. Several companies that I have worked with have measured decreases in the amount of time spent finding information and, as a result, more efficient workflows. Measurement is critical. It just needs to evolve with the usage.

What have been your keys to success? What have been your pitfalls?

Related and of interest:
The ROI of Internal Social Media Networks
Behavioral Change Before ROI
IBM's Journey to Social Business
Deloitte Australia: A Yammer Customer Case Study
Increase Your Company's Productivity with Social Media

PR? Or Did Komen Forget Social Businesses are Built on Culture and Community?

2012-02-13T08:00:00.005-05:00

The Huff Post headline read "Bad PR Move, Susan G. Komen." The Washington Post called it a "PR fiasco." But was it really a PR crisis? Where was the internal community that should have been a cohesive unit? Where was the engagement of the broader external community they have cultivated?

Doug Poretz asked a good question:

How could an organization with such a stellar reputation and such deep grassroots support, become so dramatically stupid and incompetent so suddenly? (http://bit.ly/yK5d8l)

The answer, of course, is that nothing happened suddenly. The public melt-down reflects a culture that lacks internal cohesion and fails to engage communally with its external supporters.

Social business is about people and community - and it starts inside an organization. Komen executives from within the corporate ranks as well as among the local affiliates not only resigned in protest over the announcement that Komen was halting funding to Planned Parenthood, but they did so with public statements of surprise and outrage. They did not support the organization they represented. The internal cohesion and coordination of a social business was lacking.

The Komen Foundation is built on grass-roots advocates, on ardent supporters who spread the word, on passion. It is built on community. But the Planned Parenthood decision exposed an organization that seems to operate internally in an unsocial, me-versus-you, hierarchical manner. Individuals, not community, seem to dominate.

When internal community is weak, the external segment of the community founders as well. Komen supporters still believed in breast cancer awareness and research, but could they believe in the Komen Foundation?

In contrast, Planned Parenthood engaged their community. And social networks worked. According to the Washington Post, the response was swift and strong. More than 2,000 people shared Planned Parenthood's Facebook post; over 32,000 new fans joined the Planned Parenthood Facebook page in 4 days; Twitter users sent over 1.3 million tweets referencing Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood reached out to their community and asked for their involvement, and the community responded. Many voices created a loud statement; people signed petitions; they donated money. Activity was coordinated and connected; social at its best.

Particularly in non-profit social businesses, success depends on the engagement of a passionate, coordinated community. Lose the organizational passion, lose the community, and the social impact of your message is fleeting.

How have you grown and maintained your community internally as well as externally?

You Don't Need a Social Media Strategy

2011-12-01T08:00:00.001-05:00

Jumping into social media without a strategy and plan is not a good idea. But do you need a stand-alone SOCIAL MEDIA strategy? What distinguishes a social media strategy? Is it a communications strategy? A marketing strategy? An engagement strategy? (And what do you mean by an engagement strategy?)

You don't need a social media strategy. You need a business strategy. And you need a transition strategy to help your organization and employees embrace new, more effective ways of operating. Those new means include social media, and exploring the value of becoming a social business.

When I work with organizations to develop social media strategies, the strategies have two distinct areas of focus.

The first, and most important, follows Clover Architecture. The biggest hurdles for successfully using social media align with the 3 big leaves of clover architecture: culture, leadership and governance. Technology, the fourth and smaller leaf of the four leaf clover, is the fourth area of a social media strategy.

The second part of a social media strategy involves developing and aligning a plan with the overall business strategy. We begin by considering 3 issues:

1. Objectives - What are the organization's objectives and how will you use social media to help you achieve them?

2. Customers and Audiences - What are the characteristics of your target audiences? How do those audiences use social media? Where do they currently hang out on-line? How can you best reach and engage with them?

3. Resources - Who in your organization interacts with customers? Where is there wiggle room? (Yes, there is always wiggle room. If you have customer-facing staff, there are unplanned times when the retail lines are non-existent or the customer service lines are not ringing. Customers follow their own timelines, which are often not those you planned!)

Only THEN do we define social media activities and tools and execution plans.

It's easy to create a plan. It's hard to create a plan to implement your overall strategy and impact your business.

Let me know what have been your keys to social media strategy success.

B2B Social Media - Content and Culture

2011-11-07T08:00:00.001-05:00

I am a "huge" believer that statistics show whatever we want. (I have quoted Twain before, bit it's still one of my favorites: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.") But when statistics support my personal observations and experience, I have to believe. The use of social media by B2B companies is growing, is proving far more prevalent, and far more valuable than generally recognized.

What intrigues me, though, is how the effective use of B2B social media differs from the higher profile B2C usage. Content drives B2B social media, content that allows people access to a company's expertise, leading views, and unique insights. Social media not only puts a face to the corporate wall, but exposes a deeper understanding of the skills, talents and brains that make up the company.

Social media enables B2B companies to claim and demonstrate their position in the marketplace. What makes the company different? Why should we partner? What is the competitive edge you bring? Simply retweeting articles written by others or developing a fun Facebook page does not create the necessary demonstration of who you are.

Focus Research's 2011 Benchmark Study highlighted the importance of thoughtful content. B2B marketers ranked blogs, webinars, white papers and videos as more valuable for directly supporting marketing objectives than did B2C companies. User/peer-created content and data-driven research reports were more valuable to the B2C companies.

Corporate blogging is the primary purveyor of new content and has tremendous impact in the B2B space. B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those who do not according to Hubspot (State of Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report, 2010). Hubspot also found that companies that blog more than 4X a week see the greatest increase in traffic and leads.

Nice. But how does a company already stretched for resources blog that often?

This is when culture enables social media.

Too many companies are afraid to let their experts "talk." Materials need to be vetted through the PR or Communications or Marketing or Social Media Department. The tone has to be "right." The spin has to be "right." The message has to align with the corporate message.

Those companies don't trust their own culture; they don't trust the individual voices of their employees to harmonize. Trust comes from culture. A social culture is a necessary enabler of an effective B2B social media strategy.

Blogging is how companies share their thinking, their knowledge and the depth of their expertise. A blog post needs a genuine voice. It needs the person who has the knowledge to write the blog. Most companies have a number of "mile deep" experts, but few experts have the time to author a blog. Most, however, can find the time to write a post every couple of weeks. And that is the approach many of my most successful clients have taken - a shared blog. Each person writes every few weeks on a particular subject, sometimes on seemingly esoteric topics.

This approach works for the bloggers as well. Putting pictures, brief bios, contact information and expertise on the web site as well as on the blog helps the bloggers to raise their professional profiles. That practice also turns the company from a building into a group of people, individuals with personalities whom prospective buyers can reach out and contact - and with whom they can establish relationships. Deep experts and passionate employees are the new front line.

People learn about one another internally from blogs as well. A social culture not only drives lead generation and revenue, it also improves corporate loyalty and productivity.

Content and culture. They need each other.

Related articles you might like to read:
12 Tweetable Statistics Prove B2B Social Media Rocks: http://t.co/bsprfmox
Mature Companies Need to Break the Rules: http://bit.ly/kGxlxz
Corporate Culture and Leadership are Inextricably Bound Together: http://bit.ly/jHNyhg

The Reluctant Leader - Corporate Culture & Leadership are Inextricably Bound Together

2011-10-14T08:00:00.002-04:00

"Culture" seems to be growing in importance as a corporate buzz word. Tony Hsieh famously made it the key to the success of Zappos. Nordstrom differentiated on their culture of service years ago ("Hire the smile; teach the skill.") It is one of my 4 leaves of the clover architecture of successful social media. Culture is what makes companies great and what makes employees great ambassadors.

But the often exclusive focus on culture can be misleading and even damaging. Culture change without passionate leadership is often chaotic and often a failure. When a leader advocates or embraces change, the critical first followers can step up quickly, pulling along with them subsequent waves of followers. I have seen Derek Sivers' wonderful TED talk on leadership ("How to Start a Movement") numerous times, and while we can debate whether the "lone nut" or the first follower is the true driver of change (there is no first follower if the lone nut doesn't first show the way!), culture change requires those one or two people out front.

Culture change doesn't have to be explosive; sometimes it is evolutionary. Some of the most difficult changes happen where the existing culture is not toxic, but positive. Those changes require a leader with the vision to fight FOR, not just AGAINST.

One of my clients is struggling with the problem of a positive culture and a reluctant-to-change leader right now. The corporate culture is social media friendly - warm, open and supportive. However, the CEO doesn't understand social media. (Those of us who work in social media sometimes forget that not everyone tweets, blogs, and shares over digital networks.) She is coping with a stretched staff, a lot of exciting changes to products and services being offered, and a fear of diverting attention and resources by engaging in social media.

Because the target market skews to young adults, she intellectually believes that she "has to" get into social media. Her managers are eager and several are social media savvy; we have developed a great social media strategy; benefits are tied to corporate objectives. But she can't let her team move forward in this space. It's too alien. Too scary.

So we are trashing the overall social media strategy for now and substituting a two-pronged approach.

Cultural immersion for the CEO
Narrow focus beta trial

Cultural immersion is a lot like language immersion in elementary school. We are setting up the CEO on Facebook so she can play around. We are showing her, in one-on-one sessions, how to navigate Twitter and find what interests her. We are getting her comfortable with social media - not just intellectually, but practically and tactically. Leaders need to touch it, to feel it, to use it in order to lead - or to allow - a revolution.

Rather than a broad social media strategy that stretches across culture, governance, technology, implementation...we are focusing narrowly to start. We have selected one new service where we will integrate social media. Limited scope. Limited number of staff. Limited impact on total operations. A great opportunity to showcase the costs and benefits of incorporating social media.

The CEO has been a good leader and has created a strong culture. But as social media increasingly becomes an imperative for her business, she needs to learn again how to charge forward, how to leave her comfort and reluctance behind.

Peter Drucker's comment that "culture eats strategy for breakfast" is popping up everywhere these days. Perhaps more relevant to the reluctant social media leader is Drucker's comment that "The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday's logic."

Relevant posts you might like to read:
Clover Architecture - the 4 Leaves of Extraordinary Social Media, bit.ly/r9oppb
Don't Follow the Rules - 3 Contrary Actions to Create a High Performance, Social Media Culture, http://goo.gl/fb/59Gdf
Passionate Leadership, http://goo.gl/fb/7RIZS

Flash Mobs Infiltrate Business (Schools)

2011-09-30T08:00:00.009-04:00

Not long after I wrote about why businesses should use flash mobs internally, I received an e-newsletter from the Stanford Graduate School of Business (my alma mater) with a link to this video: Flash Mob Marks Opening of Knight Management Center

A flash mob at a venerable business school! And a posted comment that read:

"These guys are business students? Really? I would never have guessed...."

Exactly the point.

Businesses need to change because future employees and customers are changing how they act and how they interact. Business cultures need to change to reflect the changing behaviors and perspectives of employees. Those organizations that embrace being a social business will out-compete the others. They will relate to employees and customers by paying attention to everyone, by being one among many in the ecosystem. They will attract and retain better employees; they will open up, worry less about appearances, and actively engage. You can’t participate in a flash mob and worry too much about perfection. Make a mistake? Catch on and catch up.

The Stanford students celebrated their new building through a demonstration of community. Their flash mob exemplified why companies need to break the rules and evolve their cultures. Remember the changes?

Don't reward results - reward new behavior
Don't optimize current operating processes and procedures - revolutionize!
Don't hire for cultural fit - hire the future, not the status quo

These students ARE the future of business. They are already making clear the social business values they embrace.

Related posts:
Flash Mobs! Corporate Culture Change? http://bit.ly/rcJtf0
Mature Companies Need to Break the Rules: http://bit.ly/KGxlxz

Flash Mobs! Corporate Culture Change?

2011-09-01T08:00:00.001-04:00

Big brands are behind many flash mob events. They are good for image; they create a personality for the brand; they drive engagement. They have become a marketing tool, but don't companies need those things internally too?

As I work with organizations to develop social media strategies, one of the biggest stumbling blocks is the internal culture. If you are not open and transparent and, well, social, inside, you can't fake it long on the outside. A couple of months ago, I talked about how breaking the rules helps organizations to evolve their cultures. The 3 big takeaways:

Don't reward results - reward new behavior
Don't optimize current operating processes and procedures - revolutionize!
Don't hire for cultural fit - hire the future, not the status quo

(for more, see the post at http://bit.ly/kGxlxz)

I think we also need to add something more. We need to shake things up; we need to wake up! And that is what a flash mob does. It makes us sit up and take notice. It says we're not tweaking or tip-toeing around the edges; we're moving and shaking and having fun doing it! And we're doing it together, as a team. Isn't that what a social culture is all about?

Flash mobs seem to offer opportunity in two ways inside corporate walls.

Stage a flash mob in the lobby; get employees out of their cubicles; get them talking to one another
Use the creation of a flash mob as a team building exercise

Confident that others have had this idea as well, I searched on-line for examples of organizations staging flash mobs internally to help change culture. I found only one, from TedxSamsung.

Flash mobs as a team building exercise incorporate many of the aspects of successful social cultures.

Each person's contribution is important
The overall dynamic exceeds what anyone can do alone
Trusting that everyone will participate honestly is key to the interaction
It's about skill and enthusiasm, not hierarchy
There are a lot of small steps. If you make a mistake, it's not critical; fix it; catch up, and keep going

...and it's much more fun than hoping the person behind you will catch you when you fall backward, and less dependent on your athletic ability than a ropes course.

Have any of you experienced flash mobs inside an organization?

Integrating Social Media into Everyone's Job - Even in Clinical Health Care

2011-08-12T08:00:00.001-04:00

I recently watched the COO of a health care organization get excited when she suddenly "got it." We were talking about how the company could use social media to help achieve its objectives. We discussed market positioning, and brand awareness, and information sharing, and friends and family support groups. The column titled "Clinical" on my brainstorming sheet, however, got little attention. Until the COO took a second look at my preliminary ideas and suddenly saw how some social media channels and concepts could be used to improve direct patient care.

In that moment, the discussion shifted. We were no longer talking about how to USE social media. We were talking about how social media could change the core business model and operations. Social media was being made part of everyone's job, even the clinicians'.

Health care organizations generally play only tentatively with social media. They are concerned about privacy; many are big and bureaucratic; openness and transparency are rarely cultural identifiers (apologies and kudos to those small, agile, and culturally open health care groups). But when social media is recognized as an enabler to improved outcomes and performance, the opportunities multiply.

Health care organizations can expand the engagement with patients, whether in a one-to-one or one-to-many environment. They can engage with the patient communities that already exist, help create new networks, and even enhance some therapies. They can improve internal communication among staff, which ultimately aids patient outcome and operating performance. The opportunities only exist, however, if all staff members - clinical and not - are responsible for integrating social media thinking and lifestyle into their jobs.

The COO of this health care organization was using the clover architecture approach to implementation (see http://bit.ly/r9oppb):

She was leading by sharing her insights and asking everyone to think differently, and by identifying how she would use social media in her own job.
A distributed governance structure was being implemented, with each staff person assuming responsibility; there would be a social media guru, but no central social media department.
The cultural change that was beginning was enormous. Each person, including clinicians, was being challenged to figure out how social media could help to drive better results. Multi-directional and multi-stakeholder collaboration became key.
The technology was kept user-friendly and simple.

By recognizing that the objective of social media is a lifestyle not initiatives (see http://bit.ly/rb0P2i), this health care organization is improving patient care and satisfaction. Every department and person is invited to participate.

Build It and They Might NOT Come: Internal Social Networks, Employee Engagement and Culture Change

2011-08-04T08:00:00.001-04:00

Not everyone agrees that an open, transparent culture -- the type we identify with social media -- is best. Not everyone wants to add "marketing" or "customer service" to his or her responsibilities. "I want to work with technology, not people" is a not-uncommon, although usually unspoken, thought. Other people simply prefer structure and limited responsibility. And those traits can add to the efficiency and productivity of many companies.

Not everyone want to focus on making the company successful either. Many employees are trying to establish themselves and further their own reputations and careers; the organization is a short-term alliance. Ideal? Not at all. But reality.

So if, as I believe (see for instance http://bit.ly/oYbtHT), success with social media first requires comfort and cultural support internally, are these organizations doomed in the new social world order?

A few years ago, I helped a mid-sized professional services company implement an internal social platform as the first step in executing a social media strategy. Employees clamored to be among the first on the site. We offered tips and training; a few people started posting; two executives participated actively, and within a couple of months - NOTHING.

Leadership faultered. While many executives were lurkers on the site, only the original two enthusiasts had posted.

The professional value was not clear. Performance reviews did not recognize those who shared. In a business where knowledge and relationships are power, employees felt the new platform might enable others to snap up their information without giving credit. The efficiency of the social platform for exchanging information, pointing out new ideas, and adding value to an initiative was overlooked.

The dominant culture of the company was one of controlled sharing on a need-to-know basis. Not exactly social media nirvana. We decided to embrace and respect the corporate DNA nonetheless.

We found success by using the social networking platform to enhance and evolve the existing culture, not change it.

We limited use of the platform to one team with 5 selected characteristics:

Team members came from several different departments
Team members were geographically dispersed
Each person brought a different perspective and knowledge to the project that was important for a successful outcome
The team leader was enthusiastic about the new way of working
Benefits were clear

Team members experienced real-time value from using the social networking platform. Communication and collaboration were easier; the number of major revisions dropped; edits and modifications could be made, disseminated, and enacted more quickly; work hours and end-to-end project time declined.

Sharing more openly paradoxically also made team members feel that they had more control of their work process and product. At the completion of the project, team members were already using the internal social network for other work activities.

Work team by work team, node by node, the use of the internal social platform spread. The objective was not to change the culture, but to help employees succeed more fully within the existing norms. Two years later, the cultural changes are manifest.

The Inside Story - Show and Tell

2011-07-21T08:00:00.001-04:00

Once upon a time (about a year ago), a client declared that their new focus would be improving the consumer experience. One executive wanted to know how to use social media to achieve this goal, although they sold through a global distributor network and did not deal directly with the consumer.

So we scoured discussion forums and blogs and other social media sites to learn what consumers liked, didn't like and wanted. Then we asked the distributors what they thought. How could the manufacturer better support them so that they could better support the consumer? Consumers, we discovered, wanted shorter repair time; they wanted repairs done right the first time, and they wanted leading edge information about the newest features and upgrades. Delivering those benefits correlated with higher consumer satisfaction and lower churn. Dealers wanted help.

We created a social media strategy and a new operating model that promised to give the dealers the tools to fuel their passion and to provide the experience the consumer wanted.

But the systems in place weren't "broken." Why "fix" them? How could we convince the majority of the executive team that the best approach was using social media platforms rather than call centers or road shows? We developed a business case.

We told stories.

With clip art and enthusiasm, we wrote and illustrated a series of vignettes. Carey and Caroline Consumer went through each stage of the customer lifecycle -- from becoming interested in the product through to purchasing, warranty repair issues, and ultimately deciding whether to upgrade, stay with the status quo, or move to a competitor. At each point in the customer lifecycle, we illustrated how the proposed social media would affect the process; how it helped to shape the consumer experience, and how it influenced measurable outcomes.

We presented the stories to the C-suite. No power point decks with bulleted lists, we used one-act plays and dramatic readings. We employed imagination plus some prototypes and mock-ups. It was fun; it was often times funny, and it drove home the value of the proposed social media strategy.

We hear a good deal about telling stories in social media. But the stories are usually about how other companies are succeeding, not visionary tales about the impact of social media inside our own organization.

Be creative. Show and tell. The inside story can be powerful.

What stories have you told?

Forget the 4 Ps of Marketing; Think the 3 Cs of Social Business

2011-07-14T08:00:00.001-04:00

How can a traditional marketing culture cope in the new social world of business? It can't.

Classical marketing, still taught at most business schools, misses the point. The 4 Ps that have defined marketing activity for so long - Product, Price, Place, Promotion - work when companies and customers participate in binary communications: company to customers, customer to company. But in a multi-channel world, inbound and outbound conversations exist for everyone, at any time, to anyone.

The 3 Cs of Social Business: Content, Customer, Channel

Social media is about engagement and relationships, two inherently unmanageable activities. Product, price, place and promotion might drive short-term results, but long-term relationships evolve from communities of interest, from respectful discussions, and from connections that cross and take unexpected paths. Those relationships create self-regenerating marketing engines, whether the core business is B2B, B2C or B2B2C. The basic building blocks are no longer the 4 Ps of marketing, but the 3 Cs of social business.

Content - is both the message and the words, pictures, sounds and context that convey your message. In a social relationship, content is the driver of engagement and often involves multiple messages, messages that get passed along (remember the old game of telephone?), and messages that are either much shorter or much longer than the traditional marketing message. Your content imparts not only information, but also the culture of your organization. As in any relationship, the customer needs to like you, or at least respect you, before engaging. Consistency in messaging over time and across business units and corporate silos is critical and impossible to manage. Content creation expands way beyond the old world Marketing Department.

Customer - Who is your target customer??? The holy grail of marketing used to be to identify your target customer segments, then align the 4 Ps around them. But customers have become peripatetic; they roam from one community of interest to another - both personal and professional; they surf blogs and tweets and Facebook posts and YouTube; they share what they find interesting with individuals outside your target segments. And then one of these people you hadn't targeted is suddenly a fan and pushing you into segments even further afield from your "target." In The Domino Project (see http://bit.ly/pEu1ta), Seth Godin suggests that publishers stop publishing books with a target audience in mind, "...the glory days of publishing to fill a niche are gone...The new frontier is to publish books that spread." Today, Marketing needs to let customers declare themselves first, then service those customers as effectively as possible.

Channel - Social media channels present a spaghetti web of connections. While advanced analytics are enabling more personalization, serving up ads for instance only to individuals who meet certain criteria, social media can also make it more difficult to engage. In the old B2B world, for example, personal knowledge of customers was a sales role, not a marketing perspective. Yet, effective use of social media channels requires knowing your customers. Where do they hang out on-line? In what social media communities? What Twitter hashtags do they follow? How do you humanize your organization to become part of the customer's personal network? Does your culture mesh with your customer's personal and professional cultures? Where you socialize is itself a message and a determinant of the customers likely to find you. Who within your organization can comfortably participate in these communities?

The 3 Cs of Social Media reflect the basic change demanded of Marketing and the role of Marketing in your organization.

How is your Marketing Department changing? Does it still exist?

Internal Social Networs - Behavioral Change Before ROI

2011-07-05T13:35:00.000-04:00

Intranets are everywhere, and companies are rapidly adding social networking features - wikis, blogs, tagging... Yet satisfaction with these tools is stunningly low. Prescient Digital reports that only 23% of executives rate 2.0 tools as good or very good, and 38% rate them as poor or very poor. (http://ww.prescientdigital.com/articles/intranet-articles/intranet-2-0-becomes-mainstream)

Technically, a LOT of good tools are out there. So what's going on???

Tools increase efficiency

Tools improve productivity

Tools make it easier for employees to find information and the experts they need

Tools alone don't work

Prescient points out, "Those organizations that don't have intranet 2.0 tools are not getting executive approval to proceed as they don't have a proper plan or business case that convinces senior management of the need." Is the failure to achieve the promised savings the reason behind the dissatisfaction of those who do have intranet 2.0 tools?

Maybe in a few cases. But overall it's not execution or the lack of a plan or business case that is the problem. The problem is the core need to justify internal networks with business cases. ROI is critical, and I have written about it many times (see, for instance, http://bit.ly/internalROI), but the anticipated ROI will not be realized if the social network does not reflect fundamental shifts in organizational and interpersonal behavior.

The objective of social media is lifestyle, not initiatives (http://bit.ly/kYsQ6u). And lifestyle within the corporate walls needs to change before internal or external social media strategies have lasting and measurable value.

When Starbuck's introduced MyStarbucksIdea.com, the driver was CEO Howard Shultz's belief that the company needed to reconnect with its customers. Look at the site (really, even for non-coffee drinkers, it is a great site). Yes, Starbuck's is engaging its customers. It is also engaging its baristas, those rarely listened-to front-line employees who see it all, who talk to and listen to customers, who execute the policies and operational procedures and know what works and what doesn't. Effective social media ignores hierarchy and organizational silos. The results probably do drive greater employee efficiency, but that is a by-product of the new social lifestyle.

One of my favorite corporate activities was the "feel good" campaign by Canadian credit union Servus. Servus gave 20,000 people $10 CDN and asked them to create a "Feel Good Ripple" by giving the money to someone else. Buy flowers for the grocery store cashier; buy coffee for the person behind you in line at the drive-thru; give $10 for a lunch to a homeless shelter. (http://www.springwise.com/financial_services/feelgoodripple/)

To have a positive impact, internal social network initiatives similarly have to change the interpersonal dynamic.

Reward employees for sharing what went wrong so that others can learn.
Reward people for helping others when it didn't affect their own jobs.
Have people track how much time the intranet saved them, and allow them to donate that time to help someone else.

Internal social networks work when they help corporate lifestyle and culture to change.

What has your organization done to make the intranet a lifestyle change agent?

How Social Networks Redefine Distributor-Manufacturer Relationships

2011-06-21T08:00:00.001-04:00

The old distributor, supply-chain model is dead – or at least dying rapidly. Which is not to say that distributors are no longer needed. But the relationship among manufacturers, distributors, and consumers is changing radically.

Many years ago, P&G brought consumers into the conversation through the use of coupons. Then Intel, a high-tech engineering company, pushed this idea further and created a consumer image. Intel didn’t sell directly to consumers, but it created consumer loyalty and demand for its products. From far down the traditional supply chain, Intel reached around to the other end – the consumer.

Social media networks are now redefining the manufacturer-distributor-retailer-consumer chain from a series of sequential links to a circle of collaboration. Distributors are still critical; they still provide primary sales and support to consumers. Manufacturers, however, can use social networks to provide a great deal more assistance to distributors while creating stronger recognition and greater customer loyalty for their brands.

The top 5 opportunities are business-based, not channel- or tool-based. New apps and new channels can slide into execution plans to help meet business goals. And that is critical, because you don’t need a Facebook strategy; you need a business strategy. So how can social networks help manufacturers who rely on distributors?

v Locate parts and products – When customers contact a distributor for a part, they often need it now (or an hour ago). Few distributors, however, keep a full-line of parts in stock, and manufacturers might be OOS as well, particularly for older models. Of the several ways that manufacturers can address this issue, two stand out for me.

o Manufacturer-hosted forums for distributors provide a central location and parts exchange opportunity. Especially when distributors are geographically dispersed, they welcome the opportunity to reach out on a one-to-many rather than one-to-one basis. It’s more efficient; it creates new distributor-to-distributor relationships and greater engagement, and it solves problems.

o Pro-active notifications help avoid crisis situations. Wholesale Pallet Rack Products acquired some Prest Lock 1 frames and beams after Excel Storage Products went out of business. Joshua Smith, director of sales and operations at Wholesale Pallet’s sister company AK Material Handling Systems, tweeted to WPRP’s dealers that they had the Prest Rack beams. As Smith tells it, “it turns out one of our dealers had a customer that had recently damaged its uprights with a forklift. We were able to provide the dealer with the product in less than 48 hours.” Happy dealer. Happy customer. Sale made. (For more, see www.themhedajournal.org)

v Provide point-of-purchase customer assistance – Social media is mobile, which means that consumers can – and do – access information at the time of purchase. Flurry Analytics recently reported that people spend more time on mobile applications than on the web each day, 81 minutes vs. 74 minutes. According to LightSpeed Research (http://bit.ly/bizreport) almost 2/3 of consumers put heavy emphasis on product reviews, and over 2/3 say that 2 negative reviews would deter them from purchasing. Jordan Winery is taking advantage of these trends. The winery has built custom videos for digital wine menus, most prevalent at high-end restaurants. In about 2-minutes, Jordan’s winemaker describes his wine’s profile just when a customer is preparing to choose a bottle to order. Chicago Cut Steakhouse uses iPad menus loaded with a Jordan video, and Jordan reports that “within 45 days, our sales at the restaurant increased 17 percent.”

Dry Creek Vineyard is putting QR codes on its wine bottles, enabling customers in the wine aisle of a grocery to scan the code and be brought to a Dry Creek Vineyard webpage. (For more on wine industry social innovations, http://bit.ly/pressdemocrat)

Just-in-time information can be used in many situations – from car dealerships to electronics purchases. The information gives consumers confidence, gives the manufacturer a competitive edge, and makes it easier for dealers to close a sale.

v Spotlight the experts – You don’t have to know everything, but being the go-to location for expertise keeps customers and dealers engaged, and ultimately buying and selling. Manufacturer-hosted forums and blogs provide a unique opportunity to create communities that actively involve a range of stakeholders.

o In-house experts – Your engineers and back-office experts provide humanity and a face for your organization. Allowing them to have individual blogs on the corporate website also helps the employees establish their professional brands.

o Hobbyists and enthusiasts – Bring the most knowledgeable of these folks onto your site. Let them share their knowledge, answer questions, and raise ideas. Raise their profile and your own.

o Dealers – Front-line dealers have tremendous vision into the market, competitors, and product. Give them a voice. As smaller businesses, dealers often lack the time or resources to set up their own digital and social networks, but they welcome the venue that manufacturers can offer.

element14 (www.element14.com), built for electronic design engineers, brings together all of these various stakeholders. One of my favorite aspects is the use of YouTube, allowing people to showcase skills and techniques. The Ben Heck Show (http://bit.ly/e14benheck) is part of the element 14 community, yet it’s unique and fun and often fascinating. Take a look at Ben Heck’s Remote Expedition Camera Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coMZY5FNado). It’s the type of exchange that simply wouldn’t happen without element14 and social media.

v Improve dealer “help desk” functions – Forums that allow questions and answers to be easily searched, that put internal experts in touch with dealers, and that enable dealers to help one another drive down call center costs and improve the information flow. I addressed this in a previous post, http://bit.ly/welcomingdistributorsontonetworks .

Establishing vibrant social networks creates greater engagement between manufacturer and dealer, helps dealers close sales, and forges greater bonds among the dealer, consumer, and manufacturer. B2B companies have been edging into social media reluctantly but steadily. The opportunity exists NOW to realize significant competitive advantage by establishing a social dealer network. It’s not the old supply chain any more.

Internal Knowledge Sharing and ROI - It's Personal

2011-06-15T08:00:00.001-04:00

Why would you give away your knowledge, not to a competitor, but to an internal colleague? Team work is great, but in the end one person gets primary credit for the sale; one engineer is the lead developer; one customer service manager drives the highest customer satisfaction scores. And that person gets the promotion, the biggest bonus, and the greatest ego boost.

Yet organizations are adopting internal social networks with the hope of improving productivity and innovation through greater knowledge sharing. Prescient Digital (www.prescientdigital.com) reported in their Intranet 2.0 Global Study 2010 that the main reasons that companies invest in intranet 2.0 tools are employee collaboration (76%) and knowledge management (71%). Does knowledge sharing naturally follow?

Knowledge is far more than data; it includes the analysis and experiential wisdom that we bring to information. Understanding when we need to share true knowledge and when we need to facilitate the transfer of information helps organizations build effective internal social media networks. It is critical to driving the ROI of internal social media.

Knowledge versus Information Sharing

Two of the three factors that drive ROI for internal social media depend on knowledge sharing. Only one factor is primarily data or information driven. (see http://goo.gl/fb/pdpSI 3 Benefit Measures - The ROI of Internal Social Media Networks) Recognizing the distinction helps the change management process; employees can share at the level that benefits both themselves and the organization.

v Enhanced Employee Engagement depends on the give-and-take of knowledge sharing. Numerous studies have linked higher levels of employee engagement to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, lower turnover and higher sales. By facilitating greater sharing of both personal and professional knowledge, internal social media networks boost employee engagement. Within about 3 weeks of launching its new social networking site, The Hub, SAS had almost 50% of its employees using the site and 425 groups established. The Hub intentionally blurs the line between the professional and personal, creating stronger, more multi-faceted ties between employees and the company. Becky Graebe, internal communications manager at SAS, describes the site as “kind of like a Facebook/LinkedIn behind the SAS firewall.” Sharing knowledge creates friendships and connections, across and up-and-down the organization, which drives employee engagement and positive ROI. (For more information, see http://www.ragan.com/InternalCommunications/Articles/SAS_internal_social_network_attracts_5000_users_in_42751.aspx)

v Better, faster innovation requires more structured knowledge sharing. Success depends on governance structures that facilitate and reward cross-silo and cross-functional work - while continuing to recognize the primary sources of both inspiration and execution. A key is bringing together individuals with complementary skills and reducing redundancy. Merely sharing data is insufficient for innovation; sharing must involve insight, analysis and creativity. $21.8 billion pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly implemented an internal social networking solution to enable more efficient and cost-effective processes for new drug development. R&D scientists and subject matter experts are now in touch throughout the product development process, across multiple divisions and around the globe. Increased knowledge sharing has helped reduce costs and accelerate innovation. Personal brands are enhanced not threatened.

v Streamlining operations depends on information sharing, not knowledge sharing. Many tools enable employees to find data and experts more quickly, and allow executives to ensure that activities are focused on the key strategic initiatives.

Many internal social networks facilitate data sharing; doing the same things more efficiently yields a positive ROI. Knowledge sharing multiplies the benefits that an organization receives. Unlike data, however, knowledge is personal and reflects an individual’s value and builds his or her personal brand. Internal social networks that enable true knowledge sharing must recognize the individual as well the organizational benefits. The ROI of these networks rocket upward.

Is Social Media Killing Innovation?

2011-06-08T08:00:00.001-04:00

Would social media have helped Thomas Edison? Or Alexander Graham Bell? Or Henry Ford? Or Steve Jobs?

Subjectively, it seems that most disruptive innovations spring from the mind of one individual, or at most from a two-person partnership. Remember the commonly held and oft cited view regarding the output of committee work?

I think there is little question that social media, when effectively engaged, can and does have a positive impact on improvement. Product improvement. Business model improvement. Service improvement. Operational improvement. Many of the by-now “classic” social media cases showcase these benefits. Starbucks, Ideastorm, even Comcast’s foray into Twitter for customer service – they all use the power of customer engagement and the speed of social media response to uncover and drive improvement. How do I do better what I already do?

But does social media, the ultimate collaborative tool today, really help drive innovation?

True innovation requires discontinuous or lateral thinking. Innovation reframes or redefines the underlying issue. It’s risky. And it rarely has immediate mass appeal or acceptance. Is social media, then, diminishing real innovation, driving business to the mass mediocre and to only incremental improvement?

Maybe. But I think that social media can also enhance the ability to innovate.

v One spark to innovation is the intermingling of previously unrelated ideas – Social media provides an unprecedented opportunity to acquire and mix new perspectives. Customer views, vendor perspectives, and the ramblings of random people we otherwise wouldn’t encounter potentially create more seeds to cross fertilize. Internal collaboration tools and social platforms bring together the thoughts and knowledge of colleagues in different locations and with different expertise. Innovation is about putting ideas and facts together in new ways; the more ideas and facts, the greater the inputs to innovative thinking.

v “Edison didn’t invent the light bulb by trying to improve the candle.” Innovation usually springs from addressing a broad, underlying need, not a short-term complaint or usage issue. Monitoring and listening can help to reveal fundamental opportunities that few people articulate before seeing the solution.

v As the economist E. F. Schumacher said, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex…It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.” At their core, great innovations generally reflect simple ideas – the execution might be complex, but the motivating concept is typically elegantly well-defined. Social media helps simplify and focus. Express your idea in 140 characters. Or blog until you know what you are blogging about.

Does opening up the organization to social media and the vast array of unrelated, non-linear thoughts and ideas pay off? I think so. Consider the Cuisinart. No focus group or market research ever identified the need for a Cuisinart. Carl G. Sontheimer mixed his expertise in business, technology and cooking to develop the Cuisinart.

Almost everyone has heard of the Cuisinart today, but at its introduction in 1973 most people didn’t understand WHAT it was beyond a fancy toy or souped up blender. It took two years for the home cook to begin to embrace the Cuisinart as a new, and now indispensible, kitchen appliance. Not an improvement on a blender, but an innovative tool.

Innovation pays off. Sontheimer sold the Cuisinart company in 1987 for $42 million.

Sontheimer’s education, experience, and personal interests gave him insights and the ability to span knowledge silos. Social media can help others grasp those seemingly unrelated bits that drive innovation… if companies encourage engineers and techies and marketing folks to engage in social media. If companies acknowledge that wide-ranging ideas are NOT a waste of time, that listening and learning and sharing are the sources of the seeds of innovation. If social media is integrated into the everyday of business.

How do you make social media part of the everyday at your organization?

Creating Change – Digital is Different in the Detail

2011-06-01T08:00:00.001-04:00

Change management is about helping people to adopt new behaviors and ways of acting, and the basic tenets seem to hold up under a storm of different circumstances. John Kotter defined the 8 steps to change management back in the 1990s in his now classic book, Leading Change. Those strategic steps apply broadly to most change situations.

But how do you implement that change management strategy when you are trying to move your organization to become a social business? What do you have to keep in mind? What is critical that was only of interest before? Do you need to execute differently?

As social media moves from a collection of diverse and separate initiatives to more formalized, broader engagement, and ultimately to being fully integrated and aligned with the strategy (see The 3 Stages to Becoming a Social Media Organization, http://goo/gl/fb/6flCv), distinct social media enablers become increasingly important. Four factors in particular demand new execution practices:

v Social media is real-time and all-the-time

The immediacy of social media is exciting and vibrant and down-right scary. The change management plan needs to take those considerations into account. How?

§ Rapid risk mitigation and damage control plans

You cannot predict every possible negative situation that might arise. But you can define and teach guidelines for managing those situations. Ensure that a clear social media policy is in place and well understood. Create scenarios and practice! Practice should focus on guidelines, not scripts, so that employees can adhere to the advice of Lieutenant Colonel Greg Reeder of the U.S. Marines, “In the absence of guidance: do the right thing.” (Yes, Lieutenant Colonel Reeder was talking about social media! See http://goo.gl/fb/isThH)

§ Engage legal and IT on the core change management team

Social media is fluid and does not allow time for legal review of all communications. Have legal on the core team so that employees internalize their perspectives and so that the attorneys understand the range of possible issues. Involve IT so that the technology can be tweaked for simplicity. Technology supports; it does not lead.

§ Plan for 24/7

Not every social media implementation needs to be a 24/7 operation, but plan how you will handle comments or problems that might arise out-of-work hours. Will you use volunteers to cover some additional hours? Will you follow-the-sun for staffing? Will your site(s) specify the hours you monitor and respond? Do you need extra staff at either end of your day? Who is “on call” for emergencies?

v It’s personal

Social media draws in the employee on a personal basis with a name and face, a personality and a professional reputation at stake. It also humanizes the organization. So “personal” has two aspects that must be balanced.

§ Build the team slowly and practice together to create a common culture. As an organization, you want only one personality.

§ Let the employees with the strongest social media skills mentor others, and base mentoring relationships not on hierarchy but on social media savvy. Mentoring helps both to grow culture and to reward skill and performance.

§ Allow employees to use their own voices. They have a common corporate identity, but individuality should still shine through. Let them share a bit of themselves on-line.

§ Encourage and enable employees to become internal ambassadors for the social media activities.

v Social media smashes silos

Once your social media strategy expands beyond discrete, limited trials, the activities will have impact across functional and business units; they will seep into new projects unasked; they will rattle independent fiefdoms. Actively embrace integration.

§ Involve brand managers in the change management core team, even if the only implementation is for customer service. How the customer service is handled, the words used, the policies enacted, and the customer engagement created will all affect the brand.

§ Seed other projects with employees engaged in social media. Bring a social media perspective to non-social media specific projects. This type of engagement will help to create broader organizational change more quickly.

v Social media is both the change and the process for the change

§ Use social media to communicate

Use forums, videocasts, podcasts, microblogs, blogs to share widely the successes and learnings of the social media initiatives. And don’t limit the communication to statistics and status updates; demonstrate the value of social media by sharing stories and personal accounts.

§ Make social media indispensible

Embed the use of social media into the day-to-day processes and communication. Solicit ideas and launch initiatives on internal discussion forums; make significant announcements on a blog; provide real-time announcements (closing early due to weather!) on an internal Twitter or Yammer site. Make sure that all levels of management engage over the new tools.

The foundation of change management is constant. It’s about helping people to adopt new behaviors. The strategies that underlie change management are well established, tested and proven. But when an organization is evolving to a social culture, the tactical steps you use to make sure the changes stick need to change. I would love to hear what has worked for you!

Business Model Innovation at the Abbey - Monks Embrace Social Media

2011-05-26T08:00:00.001-04:00

Social media both demands and creates the opportunity for Business Model Innovation. The Monks at Portsmouth Abbey understand this.

The monks are not known for seeking outside attention, nor has their fundamental purpose changed over the years. But the world around them has changed, as has their ability to recruit and influence. Like many socially conscious non-profits, Portsmouth Abbey has a higher calling, but they still need to “hire,” reach “customers,” and drive revenue to achieve their objectives.

With the number of monks dwindling from a high of 24 to 12 today, one objective of Portsmouth Abbey is to “promote vocations to this monastery.” Word of mouth and the simple physical presence of the monastery generated interest and “recruits” for the first 50 years or so. Established in 1919, the monastic business model relied on being an integral part of the community.

Today, the abbey is simply making itself part of the modern community through social media.

The underlying business and mission of the monastery hasn’t changed, but the business model is changing. By adapting how the monastery interacts with its stakeholders, the monastery is creating a new infrastructure to support well defined objectives and a constant mission.

They are making themselves more accessible
They are engaging and listening
They are humanizing the abbey.

Portsmouth Abbey set up a website and began blogging in March, 2011. They also established a YouTube channel and a Facebook page. With some publicity from the mainstream media (CBS News, New York Times…), the impact of the social media effort was evident early on. On the Portsmouth Abbey blog, David Moran commented:

“We have heard from 25,000 persons around the world; have nearly 100 sign-ups for our newsletter; our facebook visits are up 2000%;” and, perhaps most importantly, “we have a score of visit requests needing to be qualified.”

The new business model seems to be having a positive impact on the business – more visits to the monastery.

Social media enables old-fashioned relationships. It creates a way for organizations to become a community participant again, to become a collection of people rather than an impenetrable four 4 walls. As we hear in one of the Portsmouth Abbey YouTube videos, “monks are human.”

So the old is new again...

And if you like Gregorian chants, you might want to download the ring tone from Portsmouth Abbey.

Don’t Follow the Rules: 3 Contrary Actions to Create a High Performance, Social Media Culture

2011-05-18T08:00:00.002-04:00

How do you change the culture of an established, successful, mature organization?

An “old” culture that once worked well might no longer be aligned to today’s demands. But a manager can hardly mandate that the culture be open, trusting, and collaborative!

Adapting a culture to create a social media-friendly organization involves 3 behaviors that go against established rules:

v Don’t Reward Results – Social media is about doing things differently, engaging differently; it’s not really about a different outcome (companies still want strong revenues and profits; mission driven organizations still want to expand their impact while ensuring cash flow…) To change the culture, reward new behavior, not outcomes. For example:

o Do you reward employees who fail fast? Social media is about testing, trying, sowing a lot of seeds.

o Is “sharing” a nice-to-have or a rewarded behavior? Do employees who spend time helping others succeed get rewarded? Would you reward an employee who gets 5-star ratings on an internal discussion site and does good work over one who produces great work but doesn’t share?

v Don’t Optimize Your Current Operating Processes and Procedures – You need to change them! Use new means of working to reprogram thinking. If you don’t understand social media inside, you can’t deliver with conviction outside. Internal social networks change how employees interact, who they tap for expertise, and how work gets done. Opening up discussion forums and making comments easily accessible can fundamentally change knowledge management and customer service. Wikis change the relationship up-and-down and across teams. (Cisco takes great advantage of these new ways to work, http://socialmedia-insideout.blogspot.com/2011/03/connecting-touchpoints-internally-cisco.html ). Don’t optimize; revolutionize.

v Don’t Hire for Cultural Fit – Most organizations include screening for cultural fit in the recruiting process. But you want to change the culture, so hire the future, not the status quo.

Culture is important to the financial and economic success of companies. Employees themselves recognize the importance of culture. In a recent study, two thirds of working adults (66%) identified company culture as being very or extremely important to the success of their organization, including 29% who found it extremely important (Ipsos Public Affairs-Randstad survey http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=4980 ) Olu Ojo, in a study reported in Business Intelligence, found “a positive relationship between organizational culture…and organizational productivity.” (http://www.saycocorporativo.com/saycoUK/BIJ/journal/Vol2No2/article9.pdf)

Culture matters. It drives performance. Culture defines not only how employees work with each other, but how they relate externally – with customers, suppliers, partners… Significant changes in the external environment demand cultural shifts, and social media has created just such a significant change. Have you gone against your old cultural norms yet?

Who Me? Social Media? I’m an Engineer!

2011-05-11T08:00:00.001-04:00

It’s a cliché that a company is the sum total of the people who work there, and clichés are so often true! Social media enables companies to give each person a voice, and to demonstrate the superiority of the company by showcasing the employees. This approach also creates greater employee engagement.

The Clover Architecture model of social media (http://socialmedia-insideout.blogspot.com/2011/04/clover-architecture-4-leaves-of.html ) is built on the 4 leaves of leadership, governance, culture, technology. Inherent in each leaf is the idea that social media is integrated throughout your organization. What does that mean?

v Executives are actively involved with social media. They blog (http://socialmedia-insideout.blogspot.com/2011/03/passionate-leadership.html); they deliver podcasts; they participate on internal and external social forums.

v Central policies and processes define the guidelines, but social media activities are dispersed throughout your organization. You might want to have a social media guru on-board, but s/he does not function as an approval log-jam.

v Collaboration, sharing, experimentation and transparency are part of the core culture. The organization rewards process as well as outcome. Individuals are incented to reach out to colleagues and customers. Their individual voices and personal brands are valued as representatives of the organization.

v Technology platforms are easy-to-use.

How do you actually implement these goals?

IBM helps employees to share their passions, their personal interests, and their professional and technical insights on personal IBM blogs. (I love that “personal corporate blog” is no longer an oxymoron!) As IBM notes:

“…the opinions and interests expressed on IBMers' blogs are their own and don't necessarily represent this company's positions, strategies or views. But that doesn't mean we don't want you to read them! Because they do represent lots of business and technology expertise you can't get from anyone else.”

Then IBM lists the individuals’ blogs. (Check out the blogs at http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/ ) The impact? More engaged employees who are also professionally growing; more engaged customers who create personal contacts and recognize the depth of expertise in IBM employees – and in IBM.

As part of an effort to enhance customer experience, a high tech product company with whom I worked decided to make their engineers more accessible. At first, the engineers had mixed reaction – they aren’t social media wonks; they aren’t great communicators; they don’t have time! On the other hand, they are passionate about their work and the products, and they love sharing their enthusiasm and knowledge. We created discussion forums, and the key product engineers conducted live-chats at designated times. The result exceeded the goals. What happened?

v Engineers felt recognized and appreciated; they were virtually signing their names to their research and product designs and establishing their personal value. They found that sharing their knowledge was fun.

v Engineers were re-energized; customers and other forum participants had interesting ideas and good questions. Innovation began to expand beyond the limiting four walls of R&D; new ideas created more new ideas.

v Customer service and customer satisfaction rose significantly; customers loved having access to the experts. In addition, capturing the discussion threads and making the answers easily accessible drove down the number of calls to the customer service center. The number of calls is the primary driver of cost, so customer service costs plummeted.

Enabling employees to share internally and externally is a win-win. What approaches have you found most effective?

Herding Cats and Other New Norms

2011-04-27T08:00:00.001-04:00

If you are a 21^st century-born organizations, you probably don’t need a social media strategy. Social media is an integral element of your overall strategy; the two do not have separate lives.

But what about more mature organizations? A non-profit celebrating its 125^th anniversary this year; a 75-year old global manufacturer; a 110-year old financial services institution with hundreds of billions in assets and ranked among the safest in the world? What does a social media strategy mean to these organizations? Why – and how – should they change a successful business model?

Social media is not a discontinuous technology change that demands attention and threatens the “old way” with a single blow. It’s hard to define. (Use the words “social media,” and many companies think only Facebook and Twitter.) It is amorphous. More than anything, social media reflects social change, not technology change.

Over time, successful businesses do need to adapt to social change – in the way they operate both internally and externally. Social media and social networking have evolved to the point that they are changing people’s expectations about how to interact - person-to-person, individual-to-business, and business-to-business. Because, to state the obvious, “businesses” are just amalgamations of people with a common objective. Once changes in personal interactions take hold, those changes leak into business interactions.

What are the big changes requiring significant shifts in business models?

· Knowledge is a commodity. Remember when knowledge = power? Knowledge is not only now available, it is freely shared.

· The quantity of available data has exploded beyond our capacity to process it. Data and automated analyses are like an active volcano, constantly spewing out. The lone hero with the data who could run statistical programs has a lot of competition, competition that is trumpeting different data and different statistical programs.

· Engagement is not just the word of the day; individuals want a say; they want to be heard; they increasingly demand to be respected and empowered.

These fundamental changes demand shifts in what is valued in the workplace and how companies function. Continued success in this century requires that organizations evolve to new norms.

· The visionary composer is one of the most valuable employees. The individual who can take all of the data and analyses and create a harmonious future vision, who understands how to integrate all of the information, is more valuable than the expert.

· Hierarchies are more porous; command and control is dead. Corporate hierarchies will not disappear, but the leaders need to be the first among equals, one of the team. Excellent corporate leaders will manage not demand.

· The ability to herd cats, not sheep, will drive results. Increasingly, employees want to control their own time and to have an impact. Like cats, each wants to be recognized as an individual participating in a shared culture.

Organizations need to build these new norms into their processes. How they recruit, train and review employees, for instance, needs to change. The old performance metrics might no longer measure what really matters.

What new metrics have you used to adapt to social changes?

3 Benefit Measures - The ROI of Internal Social Media Networks

2011-04-21T08:00:00.001-04:00

The use of social media inside your organization will help to increase your bottom line. Really.

A recent Gallup study found that firms with engaged workforces have 2.6 times the earnings per share growth rate compared to their industry counterparts. And an Aberdeen Group study found that companies using Web 2.0 achieved an 18% boost in employee engagement.

The Gallup study also identified the danger of failing to engage employees: $300 Billion in wasted productivity.

The benefits side of the ROI of internal social media networks depends on how effectively the social media tools help drive:

· Enhanced employee engagement

· Streamlined operations

· Better, faster innovation

Enhanced employee engagement has, in numerous studies, been shown to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty and to drive higher sales. Greater employee engagement is also predictive of lower turnover, yielding significant savings in recruiting and on-boarding costs. Employee engagement is no longer a nice-to-have; it makes hard, bottom line business sense. (for one interesting study on these relationships, see: http://www.towersperrin.com/tp/getwebcachedoc?country=usa&webc=HRS/GBR/2008/200805/ENGAGEMENT_IMPROVES_BOTTOM_LINE.pdf)
As organizations become more comfortable with internal social media, the personal and professional lines often begin to blur, creating even greater employee engagement. Sabre Holdings Corp, which owns Travelocity, was a pioneer in internal social media, beginning Sabre Town in 2007. Since that time, a number of specialized groups have formed over the social media networks, including Mom2Mom. Participants in these groups report creating strong bonds and a sense of belonging and being understood. In a recent study, Professor Jennifer Aaker of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Assistant Professor Cassie Mogilner of Wharton, and doctoral student Melanie Rudd noted that “although spending time with bosses and coworkers tends to be associated with some of the lowest degrees of happiness, two of the biggest predictors of people's general happiness are whether they have a 'best friend' at work and whether they like their boss. Therefore, people should try to reframe relationships and workplace goals…. Building a workforce of highly qualified, hard-working, and loyal employees is an essential aspect of staying competitive in today's global markets.” ("If Money Doesn't Make You Happy, Consider Time," Jennifer Aaker, Melanie Rudd, Cassie Mogilner, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2011)

Streamlined operations help to cut costs, the second direct benefit of the use of internal social media. The range of opportunities for cost cutting – while improving employee engagement! – is tremendous. The use of discussion boards and central project sites, for example, enables executives to spot quickly time being spent on rogue efforts that don’t further corporate objectives. Employees benefit by being able to place their projects within the big picture and make appropriate decisions.
Cisco attributes millions in savings to the use of wikis. Geographically dispersed staff can efficiently work on single documents, share ideas and comments, and decrease development time.
Search capabilities, blogs and LinkedIn-like networks enable employees to find data quickly, identify and consult experts, and seek the advice of colleagues beyond those at the coffee pot. Both the speed and quality of work benefit.

Better, faster innovation provides a long-term benefit. Internal social media helps organizations expand innovation beyond the R&D walls, from the engineers to employees dealing with customers. (How many disruptive innovations do you know that have sprung from established R&D departments? How many corporations incent their R&D staff to spend time on them?)
Breaking down the functional silos speeds up innovation and time-to-market. When IT, engineering, marketing, customer service, business development…can share ideas, project status, and roadblocks together across geographies in real time, problems are resolved more quickly.

52% of organizations using Web 2.0 ranked as best-in-class performers according to a study by Aberdeen Group. Using social media internally simply makes smart business sense.

Clover Architecture – the 4 Leaves of Extraordinary Social Media

2011-04-06T08:00:00.001-04:00

Making social media an important and seamless element of an organization is like growing clover. You get a lot of good efforts and almost-there’s, a lot of 3-leaf clovers. But 1 out of 10,000 times, you get a 4-leaf clover. That’s when social media transforms an ordinary organization into one that truly stands out.

The four leaves of a clover traditionally symbolize hope, faith, love and luck. The four leaves of the internal social media clover? They represent:

§ Leadership (hope)

§ Governance (faith)

§ Culture (love)

§ Technology (luck J)

Each of these leaves is necessary for an organization to benefit as much as possible from social media. Drop any one leaf, and the impact becomes ordinary.

Three veins keep each leaf healthy:

Leadership – Executives must be

v involved

v passionate, and

v bought-in with strong ROI.

Governance – Strong social media implementation requires that silos tumble.

v Governance must be cross-functional

v Expertise must be integrated across and within units, and

v HR policies must take social media into account.

Culture – Key cultural characteristics of break-out social media organizations include

v openness

v trust, and

v collaboration.

Technology – The final leaf of every 4-leaf clover is smaller than the other three, and for social media the fourth leaf is technology. Technology is an important enabler, but without the leadership, governance, and culture, great technology is wasted. Many platforms can be implemented that enable engagement and dialogue. Keep them

v simple

v inexpensive, and

v designed for social interaction, not for file sharing!

I have discussed each of the 4 leaves of social media in previous posts and will continue to delve into these internal issues. (See, for example, http://goo.gl/fb/wthL8, http://goo.gl/fb/PBENn, http://goo.gl/fb/zUijJ)

What has been most instrumental in turning your organization into a social media model inside and out?

The objective of social media is a lifestyle, not initiatives

2011-03-30T12:09:00.000-04:00

Social media is a new way for us to get back to what matters. It is an opportunity for companies to become amalgamations of people rather than “corporate entities.” At its best, social media is simply a way for people to engage with one another across the expanse of a big world.

That is why I believe that organizations cannot succeed in social media until they have built a social media culture internally. Employees are both the first target market and the drivers of social media strategy success; they learn to share more openly, listen more carefully, and engage more fully with the entire operation. Then they can do the same with their customers and vendors and partners.

Most organizations today believe that they “have” to be in social media. They are partly correct. Success demands that organizations be more social, that they manifest the underlying reason for the success of social media.

But most organizations seem to view social media simply as a new business tool for selling, or sometimes for lower cost customer service. The statistics are overwhelming. eMarketer forecasts a 55% increase in ad spending on social networking sites, from almost $2B in 2010 to over $3B in 2011. SaleSpider found that 75% of small and medium business owners they surveyed planned to increase the percentage of marketing dollars allocated to social networking in 2011. The statistics go on and on. It’s like the moves from print to radio to television…bigger, broader, but with little change to the underlying operations or objectives. Those results are short-term and need continuous spiking.

Umair Haque said it in his article in The Harvard Business Review, http://ocvets4pets.com/archive21/From_Social_Media_to_Social_Strategy_-_Umair_Haque_-_Harvard_Business_Review.pdf It’s good to go back to the basics.

The 3 Stages to Becoming a Social Media Enabled Organization

2011-03-28T14:42:00.000-04:00

When social media “works”, it changes how an organization is governed, how people work together, how employees approach their jobs. How do organizations achieve the necessary change? How do they evolve?

Most organizations already have functioning, and often successful, business models when they begin to consider social media. Employees have roles and responsibilities that are defined and on which they are measured. How do “old-line” companies shift their operating style? Creating the new environment takes time and intent.

I have found that most organizations go through 3 stages of transition, evolving from their established cultures and structures to more open, engaged, “social media” organizations over time. Companies start with limited experiments (like single seeds in pots), expand to larger and more formalized efforts (plots with rows and cultivation plans) to engaging a whole plantation (end-to-end enterprise changes).

· Pots – This is the first stage, when organizations test and learn, experimenting with diverse and separate initiatives. Everything is contained in a separate pot. Investment requirements are low. The focus is on distinct activities – a Facebook page, a live chat on-line support function, a blog… What seems to fit best with the organization? What drives results?

· Plots – At this stage, the new activities that individually fit best begin to be accepted, and management begins to include them in broader planning. Formalized structures and processes, along with increased investment, begin to take hold. Culture change becomes more deliberate through new hires, employee training, and shifts in roles and responsibilities. Performance measurement begins to include “social media” factors such as buzz and the impact of ambassadors.

· Plantations –Social media activities and thinking are integrated into the core business and aligned with the strategy; the organization has reinvented itself without losing the essentials of its business. Social and digital media are no longer distinct from the overall strategy. The entire plantation has evolved to a new way of operating.

Companies can and do change. Test and Learn. Formalize and Change. Integrate and Reinvent.