More Social Networking examples...

Shiv Singh at TheAppGap tell us a bit about his panel talk with representatives from Best Buy, Serena Software and Oracle on their use of Web 2.0 social software.

The BestBuy experience is very interesting as an example of how certain kinds of business knowledge aggregation come out of social networking, but the one I am going to have to research more is Serena Software:

Serena Software is another interesting company and I blogged about them a few years ago (on another blog) when they first rolled out their Facebook Fridays initiative. Rather than trying to build a behind the firewall social networking enabled intranet, Serena chose to build their intranet on the Facebook platform. But not just that, they also built tools to allow the Facebook pages to connect with company data sources in a safe and secure manner. So rather than bringing the employees to the intranet, they went to where their employees were spending most of their time - on Facebook.

This is exactly what most companies are scared of doing on security/productivity grounds, so I think it's a fascinating development.

[N.B. After lunch with Steve Ward today, I realise I've been blogging far too much about various technologies and not enough about culture and communication as it features in my general work. Expect a shift of emphasis over the coming months.]

Technorati Tags: Best Buy,business case,future of internal communications,Oracle,Serena Software,social media,social networking

 

Momentum of Social Networking in the Enterprise.

 

It's growing. I posted recently about IBM, I was at a recent event where Michael Ambjorn described the tools they are putting in place at Motorola and Lee Smith notes that social networking has landed at BT.

I'm not surprised by this, I've argued for a while that the large corporation is exactly the kind of large, geographically disparate body that could benefit from social networking.

Questions that remain:

a) If it's obvious for large corporations, how do we persuade the remaining "big boys" to take it up? Senior management resistance is still a big issue.

b) How big does the organisation have to be for social networking to be a no-brainer? What's the needed "critical mass" of a network to make this kind of software useful?

 

Technorati Tags: BT,business case,future of internal communications,IBM,Motorola,social networking

Two-Way Communication is not enough

Mike Klein has an interesting post up about how "tw0-way" communication just isn't enough to be "progressive" any more. He says it's better than the old "one-way" directive style of pure order-giving, but:

organisational decisions have wider impacts than on managers and staff.  They impact customers, perhaps alter supply chains, and reflect on the organisation's credibility with a wide range of stakeholders.  And, in many respects, finding out what a staff member's opinion is could be much more valuable when it becomes known how and with whom he or she shares it.

He goes on to suggest that we're still only just developing the tools to understand "intensity of opinion" and what I might quickly summarise as the social path and impact of opinion.

[As always, go read the full article, it's not long and it's worth it.]

Naturally, I agree with Mike, but it also reminded me of something I have on my company pages, but don't blog about that much. I really believe that lateral communications is a much ignored topic, both in internal communications practice as it stands (which is Mike's focus) and in the understanding of how the totality of communication works in companies.

The totality is a viewpoint that tries to think about "functional communication" (the passing of information to get "work" done), "corporate communication" (the passing of information to support the objectives of those who hold power in an organisation) and "social communication" (the passing of information for the purposes of the people doing the communication) in a more holistic manner.

[I accept that "passing of information" is an incomplete definition of "communication" but you perhaps get the gist of the idea.]

The purpose of the holistic view is to suggest that real advances in corporate performance can accrue from working to analyse, improve and facilitate communication. Right now this responsibility is split over numerous parts of the business (IT, IC, Marketing, Procurement, etc.)  and thus, despite local "wins" few companies really advance in this aspect.

Once this holistic view is taken up, it becomes clear that the vast majority of communications in the organisation are "lateral," between people who (at least for that communication) are largely operating as peers. Thus we need to put much more effort into facilitating and improving this lateral communication.

A quick note: Mike's newest project EMELI is scheduled for 18-19 July in Amsterdam. I'm certainly trying to fit it into my schedule, if you're interested in internal comms, you should investigate whether it would suit you too.

Technorati Tags: EMELI,future of internal communications,lateral communications

Audiences and the structure of comms depts

In a similar vein to my post on The Law of Leaky Communications (but focusing on corporate functions, rather than international culture) Kevin Keohane notes that the distinctions between different audiences in corporate communications are breaking down. He moves on to ask what this means for the organisational structure of the communications function:

I think most organisations still aren’t structured to deal with this - I suspect most still structure their communications functions around internal, marketing, corporate, human resources, etc. 

So what’s the solution? 

1.  Take the existing functions and force them to work together holistically, probably by making them report to a single person who gets the “holistic” nature of communications.  The problem is, I think these people are pretty rare; most “Heads of Corporate Communications” tend to stick to their functional (or even sometimes channel management) heritage.

2.  Get functions to cooperate and share accountability for delivering a core agenda across the piece.  Probably works better in some situations than others based on politics and the strength of senior management to make it work.

3.  Restructure the function.  But how? seems to be the burning question.  Is the answer to restructure by audience?  Probably something along those lines.  But then, these conversations can come full circle, since while internal-external lines and indeed audiences are overlapping and blurring, there is still a perceived need to control marketing communications, brand communications, HR etc. etc.

 

Observations:

1) They may be rare, but I'm not sure you can work it out without them. I think any restructuring is going to bring at least some of the communication functions together and they will need a leader. Perhaps we should all be asking "Does this organisation actually train/develop people to be more than just another product of their functional silo?" If not why not? (I'll be coming back to this issue in my next post, too.)

2) "I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony..." Yes, it sounds Utopian, but it can work, in the right organisation, at the right time. Sometimes there are just a good bunch of people around and they make special things happen.

3) I don't think you can easily restructure by audience. The post-modern trend is towards overlapping, shifting audiences. You might need to restructure every week. Functions are also not completely defunct. [sic] Whilst we undertake "task-based communications" then they will still fit quite well into the functional structure, at least in terms of expertise needed.

What's my solution? Long term, there has to be more effort put into developing individuals who can manage communications holistically.

In the short term, I'd be looking at a variant of the techniques Enoptron uses for building greater co-operation between branches on different sides of the world.:

- Establish formal awareness (lists, etc.) of the remit of each group and the concerns they have about the actions of the others.

- Get the groups talking, informally where possible.

- Establish formal channels for them to get help/consult each other when they have an "overlap situation" on hand.

- Organise to remove barriers to teamwork in the performance management and other structures.

Obviously, this still hinges on building some notion that "co-operation is a good thing" which will need backing up from senior management along with careful fostering on the ground. That's why in the long term I don't think you can get away from the need for a leader with a holistic view.

 

Technorati Tags: corporate communicators,cultural translation,future of internal communications,law of leaky communications

Organisation of communication functions

In a comment to this post about Mike Klein's ideas about how Internal Communications and Knowledge Management overlap, Kevin Keohane notes:

Indy, I posted on Mike's blog as well. I've almost taken it for granted that there are connections between IC, engagement and KM. I keep coming back to the way organisations manage and structure themselves... a world where the head of KM "owns" knowledge management, the head of IC "owns" internal communication, the head of HR "owns" the people development agenda, and the head of marketing "owns" the brand.
How stupid is that, yet how many organisations do it that way?

Which cuts to the heart of the issue in a lot of ways. It's not that the future will bring totally new things, but that the way we arrange things at the moment will look rather backward.

 

Shel Holtz broaches similar terrain recently, while questioning the specifics of having a "social media manager" in a company:

I have heard calls for companies to create a C-suite position called “Chief Conversation Officer,” someone to manage the various online social channels that produce conversation. Again, that misses the point. What companies need is a Chief Reputation Officer to ensure all communication with core publics is coordinated in the company’s best interests.

...

A social media manager is a fine idea, but if he says, “Our product is shipping late because of manufacturing issues” while a media relations manager tells a Wall Street Journal reporter, “Our product is shipping late because we’ve had to redesign a part,” that inconsistency will spread through the cycle-less media space—online and off—like wildfire. Whether it’s conversation or a traditional press release, the communication channel must be used to communicate honest, transparent, accurate information.

Few organizations have anybody in a position like this. [My emphasis - Indy]. Even if there’s a senior-level public affairs person, Human Resources and employee communications often don’t report to him, and both communicate to vital publics (employees and prospective employees). Community relations often reports elsewhere, as does investor relations and government relations. And all those employees with their individual blogs? Who’s providing them with the resources they need to represent the company accurately and fairly?

 

Technology is pushing a number of communication domains together and one important result will be a rearrangement of working practices to create an integrated response to those domains. Since actions speak as loud as words, this will doubtless take in some functions that involve more than communication (notably HR) and in my opinion, likely the technical side of communication as currently embodied by IT.

 

Technorati Tags: corporate communicators,future of internal communications,internal communications,organisation of the firm

Ask and ye shall receive...

I wondered out aloud if Mike Klein might explain his insights a bit more and now, over at CommsOffensive325, he has done so...

I urge you to go and read it all, I largely agree with it all and I suppose should be kicking myself that I didn't blog about it first. But then, I don't think blogging has the same definitive status as publishing in a journal.

I came to similar conclusions using different language, Mike casts his argument using the language of knowledge management. For me, I simply observed in my work that "traditional internal communicators" largely have no view on what I called "information communication."

i.e. To do your job, you require information (which forms part of Mike's "knowledge" category) from others around you. It might be data on previous sales if you're building a marketing model, or the latest data on current product performance if you're on a project to design the next generation of your company's offering.

Up to now, the theory and practice of how this information is communicated has been left to the IT department and business process consultants. And yet, this is the most critical element of "internal communication" in any business. Yes, engagement matters and yes, communication of strategy matters, but a business whose communication of "business information" isn't working rarely survives.

Anyway, as I understand it, this is covered as part of the "knowledge" category in Mike's exposition. So he's got me behind him there, I think that integrating the "management" of various portions of communication in the business is definitely the way forward. And whoever wants to be in charge of "internal communication" needs to address all the categories in play, the old days of being a specialist department in just one are coming to an end.

On to some details of what Mike talked about (you probably need to read his piece for this to make sense):

He outlines three categories:

News/Direction: The information that tells people what to do and when. This flows mainly through formal internal communication and line management channels, and incorporates official definitions of the impacts of external news.
Opinion: This information is designed to influence the recipient and how he or she acts. It mainly comes informally from peers and colleagues but may also come from external stakeholders, or as embedded justification in official news and direction.

Knowledge: Knowledge is the information that tells an individual how to act effectively on the news and direction he/she receives. It is again generally found from peers and colleagues, though it can come as embedded instructions or can be harvested from databases and case studies.

First, it seems to me that "News" and "Direction" really deserve to be separate categories in a taxonomy. This resolves this issue about what employees like, because it's largely clear that "Direction" is the contentious category for employees and "News" is fairly welcome. (I must admit even this is not perfectly true, there are different personality types, some prefer to work independently, others prefer a greater degree of direction.)

Mike asserts that his three categories of "News/Direction, Opinion, and Knowledge" often flow together, through the same channels and as part of the same acts of communication. And again, I have to say, he's dead on. As soon as you get down into the nitty-gritty of how communication occurs (as I do in my work looking at "cultural blockages" on communication) it's very clear that any communication pipelines that exist or are set up are used for all three purposes. Those that are not frequently find themselves neglected in employees day to day priorities.

This becomes all the more important as new technologies arise which have more "bandwidth" and allow more room for informal communication to exist. Social media is the "example du jour" of this, but I'd suggest that we can learn a lot from the way email has developed in organisation too.

I like Mike's approach a lot and I'd urge everyone to give it some thought.

 

Technorati Tags: business case,future of internal communications,internal communications,IT,social media

Social networking in the enterprise (again...)

So over at Talking IC, Lee Smith links (via Jim Berkowitz) to Jake Swearingen of CNet, who pours cold water on Kris Dunn's idea of experimenting with a social network for his company.

Jake isn't overly polite, so my first instinct is to note how interesting it is that some "technology experts" are very keen to draw distinctions within "Web 2.0" between wikis, blogs, social networks, etc. and yet at the same time think of social networks as this "stuff like Facebook" blob, rather than realising that Facebook et al. are bundles of technologies, which don't all have to come together and could be bundled up with other parts of "Web 2.0" (or even Web 1.0!) and that might well turn out to be the future.

However, I have to echo Lee, (and Kevin Keohane) when he makes the point that it'd be really nice to see some of the people who are always promoting "social networking in the business" actually involved in implementing some, rather than just talking about it.

And yet, that's another reason I find the reaction towards Kris Dunn a bit excessive. At least he's trying to do some empirical work. Maybe it will turn out just as Jake predicts, but at the same time where did we get so sniffy about people trying to "walk the talk"? I at least want to applaud Kris Dunn for trying to make his ideas real.

And as much as I share the general fatigue of Lee and Kevin about the fact that there are more people making money out of talking about social networking in IC than actually doing it, I think there are a number of barriers to current adoption:

Shel Holtz recently posted about JotSpot and in there discusses one of the barriers:

A typical IT response to the notion of introducing social media tools to the intranet focuses on the time and expense involved in testing new applications to ensure compatibility with existing software. If you suggest that the social media tools can be hosted offsite, the odds are pretty good that you’ll be told the information those sites would contain is too sensitive to risk maintaining it outside the firewall.

(This excuse is pretty lame, given that every single one of the US-based companies that has raised this concern in my experience also maintains its employee 401(k) data on a hosted server.)

Now, Shel points up with this last remark that the IT dept's fear of "hosted social networking" might not be wholly rational, but that doesn't mean to say it isn't real. Also, there's a world of difference between putting company data on a pension transaction company's hosted server and putting it on Facebook or even on Ning. There's nothing in the Facebook/Ning terms of service which give the IT Director any kind of job security in the event of a security breach.

So, Lee links to Ning, but fun as it is to experiment there (as Kris Dunn is doing) it's not really an enabler for experimentation in larger corporations. The "where is the data, is it safe?" remains a significant barrier.

To overcome this, you need a internally hosted solution. I don't know how many people have one of these for sale/use. Maybe I'm wrong, but I haven't seen one in an operational state. Without that, we're not going to see much happen. If anyone knows of a good one, let me know.

Other barriers include that fact that everyone thinks "Facebook" when someone says "social network" so there is a lack of other models for what it might look like in circulation. Hence people can't see some of the possibilities. I'll try to repair that in a post later this week, as this is already getting too long.

Reacting to the 3 specific problems Jake mentions:

1) Email is more efficient:

Well, it is now, but it didn't use to be, before Notes, Exchange, Outlook, etc. I remember a day when I did business over email but sent all the docs using a fax machine. Email didn't look that useful then, but it's day has since arrived.

It's easy to see that the messaging systems on social network sites can be improved a lot. Part of why they haven't yet is because social networks have been, up to now, universes-to-themselves for their teenage/college student main customers. Developing the user interface for multi-media communications (blog, email, IM, twitter, SMS) is the hardest part perhaps here. But it will happen.

2) Social networks lose engagement over time.

Complex one this. Studies I've seen suggest that youth communities who establish around social networking stick with it, but being youth communities, the communities lose engagement over time. The older people who rushed into things like Facebook rarely integrated it into their community and so naturally their interest waned. The tool cannot create links that are not really there. If you're married with kids, you have commitments to social networks that are stronger than your Facebook friends list, unless they happen to include the same people. But that's not a common condition.

Corporate social networks do need to be integrated with the rest of the intranet functions, in particular the corporate directory and communication technologies. If it's set up as just another optional site, it won't get much interest. If it's actually a proper part of people's work eco-system, it will, like email, get a lot more use. Especially once you integrate the internal VOIP system (and potentially videoconferencing too.)

3) Social networks are, well, social.

Jake claims that the workplace is not about selective connection. Interesting working life he must have led, connecting with everyone in his organisation equally, every day.

It's true that part of the power of social networks is to cement existing relations, but they also serve to create links, particularly about factual matters (here's where the workplace can really benefit) between people who would normally find it too much effort to stay in touch.

No corporation really wants people to spend all day socialising on the internal network. The value is in creating loose connections between people who would otherwise not have a way to find each other. Yes, everyone can blog about their projects, but how will you find interesting blogs, especially when people have less time to comment and trackbacks still don't work properly? RSS still requires you to know about the blog in question...

Social networking has the potential to answer that. It creates visible topologies which can be followed and human reasons to do so. (And yes, that adds a bunch of human, emotional pitfalls too, but that's always the case in human organisations.)

This of course raises the point that social networks only make sense inside larger communities. If your office is small enough that the "global listserv" email list isn't totally clogged all the time, you probably don't need social networking to help navigate the infospace of your organisation. This is another barrier to adoption.

The laugh is, I type all this and I'm not really a social networking zealot. I just see that blogs, wikis, podcasts etc. are mostly just extra content channels and to me, it's the various kinds of "social" technology that can help us navigate all this content and make it useful, in the end.

Finally, this isn't my area of business, so as interested as I am in it, I'm unlikely to make it happen any time soon. I guess another question for the readers, who do you know who is really working on this? After all, they are the ones I should be inflicting this discourse on...

 

Technorati Tags: future of internal communications,internal communications,social media,social networking,technology

Making Internal Comms a Profession?

I wrote a long post on this topic, but I realised that it still wasn't anywhere near complete. There's essays to be written on the discussions going on. What I'll do instead is just link a few observations/concepts and maybe it'll trigger some interesting thoughts out there.

- Over on CommsOffensive325, Mike Klein notes that Ragan has some commentary on Mike's discussion with Liam Fitzpatrick about the future of IC.

- Reading the Ragan piece, they naturally come down in the middle, after all "more competence" (Liam) is like "more motherhood and apple pie" and "more transformational thinking" (Mike) is like, well, "more motherhood and apple pie" too.

They quote Liam explicitly talking about "the credibility of the profession," but this comes through even more clearly in further comments from Mike, Liam and others underneath the article. They are arguing about the form of "the profession." What, if you like, would a future "CIIC" (Chartered Institute of Internal Communications) be defined as being about?

Throw in  the recent post by Ron Shewchuk about the lack of Masters level education programs in "employee comms", which reminds me that the majority of the things we all count as "IC competence" are skills that come out of PR, journalism, etc. I think there are few educational opportunities in IC because we've yet to create a truly distinctive notion of what it takes to be in IC and the truly distinctive skills that you won't learn in journalism or PR courses.

The Ragan writer (David Murray) notes that employee comms are more determined (in their opinion) by organisational structures than IC ideals.

However, it's at this point that it seems to me, Mike is maybe on to something.

Referencing my last post, I can see an argument that says in the long term, the technologies and practice of modern internal communications, as currently typified by social media, come into unavoidable conflict with the "structure of organisations." And, I don't think that "the structure" wins that battle. Structure is strongly static, but human nature is the irresistible force. And everyone knows I'm a structuralist at heart, so I don't say that lightly.

How does all this amount to a hill of beans for everyday practice? I can't deny the force of Liam's argument. Companies will want to communicate things with internal groups, that process is fairly well understood and will not disappear. Right now, if you want credibility in your organisation, your best bet is to invest in fulfilling this role with greater competence and success.

However, I think the number of people involved in a bunch of "traditional IC roles" is going to shrink and we are going to have to understand new roles that apply in more "community" situations. It also seems to me that this is the ground where you can plant seeds of a "distinctive profession" of IC.

Of course, whether IC should be a distinctive profession, or part of HR is a question to be considered.

Seth Godin's suggestion for rebranding HR as "Department of Talent" would appear to overlap with a lot of IC work. To be clear, I'm not advocating that IC should be part of HR, but I would be surprised to see it happen. There is a logic there. Likewise, there's a craft logic to the CIPR being the dominant association for IC people in the UK.

For myself, I think that there is room for IC as a strong, independent business function, but I think it will need to change if that is to happen. And that's a post for another day.

 

Technorati Tags: education,engagement,future of internal communications,professions,social media

Advanced Internal Comms

Over at CommsOffensive325, Mike Klein joins the debate started by Liam Fitzpatrick over on BlackBeltDojo about "Advanced Internal Comms" and whether there are any revolutions left to come in the field, or is it all about really implementing basics we already know about?

Mike poses the debate as one about concentrating on competency (the Liam suggestion) vs the prospect of "fundamentally reinventing" the field. Mike suggests that:

Liam’s view only really holds water if you accept a view that organisations are fundamentally hierarchical and that internal communication exists to support the smooth functioning of hierarchies. If you accept the notion that organisations are simultaneously hierarchical and networked in nature, then it is worth recognising that very little work has been done in developing an advanced approach to internal communication that harnesses and influences the social networks in and around organisations while supporting what necessary hierarchy is required to drive an organisation towards its strategic or commercial objectives.

While the Holy Grail still eludes us, the emergence of social network tools and social network thinking are likely to play a key role in propelling the Internal Communications profession as we continue on its quest. And with the challenges we are likely to face in the short term as the budget-cutters seek easy targets, I for one think this quest is well worth continuing.

I think I have some overlap with Mike's view but I'd like to take a moment to muse on the philosophical question of "fundamental reinvention."

In the comments on BBD, I mentioned that I felt Liam was having it both ways. I said this because depending on how you cut the definition it's easy to cast something as evolution or revolution.

For example, let's take small group (4 people or so) transport. Let's think of the bullock cart from the Indian village of my grandparents, the mail coach of the Napoleonic London to Portsmouth route, one of Daimler's earliest 4 wheel vehicles, the Honda on my drive and a concept car of tomorrow, environmentally friendly which uses technology to drive itself.

There are lots of axes upon which one can measure some kind of fundamental change, for society. The increase in speed makes a huge difference to what transport can do, we seem to go in a circle about the environment, from animal power to "clean hydrogen" or whatever. And the notion of a car that drives itself has something to it too.

But, from another point of view: 4 wheels, power plant, somewhere to sit, control interface... nothing has changed in 500 years at least...

[Another set of objects for consideration might be: portable gramaphone, boombox, walkman, ipod.]

And so to the debate on IC. I do think that there are large elements of current theory (and some elements of practice) that are not going to go away. There will still be a need for various existing forms of organisation communication. So, you can fast forward 30 years and I think Liam can easily expect to find people doing "the basics" and so it's easy to argue that "fundamental reinvention" just isn't happening.

 

Of course, I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it, particularly from the point of view of IC professionals, because I think there are changes on the horizon for the typical IC department in the next 30 years. Mark highlights how social media trends mesh with the notion of an organisation as a partly a network (rather than just a hierarchy) could radically change the kinds of communication needed in an organisation.

One analogy for this might be the change from "Managament Information Systems" (MIS) departments to "Information Technology" (IT) departments. In the 60s and 70s, companies had an MIS department, which served to use technology to gather information on those doing the work and present it to managers. In a modern organisation a group of similar people are still there, but their role is (to some degree) now to think much more about how information moves between those doing the work - IT. Of course that role is still evolving, but I think it has something to say about the coming change in Internal Comms, from a management focus to a whole organisation focus.

My own contribution for now would be to suggest that once you move into that "whole organisation focus" it becomes apparent that where "communication" currently stands as a proxy for moving around particular information sets, in the future that has to expand. IC will have to overlap more with IT and think more about all the different aspects of communication. But I'll say more about that another time.

 

Technorati Tags: business case,future of internal communications,internal communications,lateral communications,social networking,systems