Social Media and IRL Lessons from Chris Brogan

Social Media and IRL Lessons from Chris Brogan: "

I’m excited to see “Trust Agents” co-author Chris Brogan present in person for the second time this year at the BMA Engage conference tomorrow. Having seen him earlier at the Kansas City IABC Business Communications Summit in February, his innovative presentation style is one unlike I’ve never seen, and I really can’t imagine anyone else pulling it off successfully.

Speaking from what seemed to be a handwritten “set list” on a folded up piece of paper, Brogan spent an hour sharing his strategic perspective on how people behave, interact, and expect to be treated. Quite frankly, he struck me like the smart, quiet guy you see in a corporation who observes everything, sees the strategy gaps the big business so obviously misses, and figures out all the answers while hardly ever getting the chance to share them.

Through a patient strategy of freely sharing insights and perspectives from his innovative viewpoint, Brogan has created the opportunity to share his strategic wisdom in increasingly rarified venues. For all the “GET MASSIVE FOLLOWERS, BE A SOCIAL MEDIA ROCK STAR QUICK ” scams floating around the web, Chris Brogan has transferred a consistently, strategically constructed online platform to an IRL business where he routinely gets the chance to share his much sought-after answers.

Among the great strategic insights at his Kansas City presentation about better cultivating and growing customers with the help of social media:

• A company can best help its people understand what it means to represent the brand by providing some level of media relations training to every employee.


• The best social media people come from customer service. They’re used to talking with customers and representing the business across many situations.


• The first steps in social media strategy should focus on prepping for crisis communication, marketing at the time of need, better addressing customer service, and conducting research on customer needs.


• Don’t spend so much time on yourself. Brogan tries to communicate 12 times more about others than about his own stuff (a remarkable strategy considering some of the authors who pound relentless tweets and Facebook updates all about themselves).


• A brand lives or dies by its database and how the company cultivates it between the times it is marketing to people.

His most important statement? The importance to Brogan of keeping people who matter to you when you don’t need anything at all from them. It’s an important life lesson, irrespective of whether you use social media or not. – Mike Brown

"

Matt McGowan and Mike Grehan preview SES Toronto 2010

Nine Enterprise 2.0 Predictions for 2010

Nine Enterprise 2.0 Predictions for 2010: "

We could make a million Enterprise 2.0 predictions for 2010, but nine jump out to us as especially salient. And since these lists always have “10 things,” can you help us out by offering a 10th prediction? Think about it as you read the list below.

Also, we’re admittedly a little late with our predictions, but it’s only because we’ve been working so hard on being early with new social computing features that matter, like integrated (vs. siloed) microblogging and Knowledge Explorer. We’ve also been busy with some under-the-radar activity that very soon will make companies’ E2.0 investment decisions a lot easier.

So, on to the list. Based on our work with more than 2.1 million Enterprise 2.0 users in organizations plus our conversations with countless companies preparing to take the plunge, here are nine predictions for Enterprise 2.0 in the next 11 and a half months and beyond:

1. Gen Y matters. Although baby boomers will be the gatekeepers for E2.0, Gen Y will take the reins and drive knowledge-sharing in unexpected new ways.


2. Microblogging will pervade the enterprise. Your colleagues are already tweeting and perhaps yammering, but they’ll be more productive if microblogging is integrated in your E2.0 environment and activity stream. Social Sites (shameless plug) is the best example of this.


3. Social computing policies will be a hot topic. Web 2.0 made everyone a publisher, but it didn’t make everyone judicious about what they publish. In allowing Web 2.0 into the enterprise, organizations will struggle with policies about how to do social computing right, internally and externally. Clamping down will defeat the purpose of easy, organic and freewheeling knowledge-sharing. Being too laid back will result in unfortunate leaks and PR disasters.


4. HR should retool. Bottom-to-top enterprise transparency will reveal certain employees as top producers and others as frauds. And though individual performance will still matter, “selfless” contributions to the collective good will demand reward.


5. E2.0 training will require training. If you’re below a certain age, E2.0 training is an oxymoron or at least a redundancy. If you’re over that age, training will be essential to take advantage of the opportunities of the new and mysterious activities known as social networking, communities, social bookmarking, tagging, activity streaming, blogging and the rest.


6. Enterprise adopts location-based services. Increasingly mobile employees will rely on GPS-enabled smart phones to know where their colleagues are. And, of course, enterprises will know where their employees are. This will enable sales forces, for example, to more efficiently schedule customer visits and have more face time with more prospects.


7. All work will become social. Whether it’s ERP, CRM, HRM, BI or marketing analytics, every important workflow will be infused and integrated with social environments that enable more efficient sharing and action upon valuable knowledge.


8. CIOs crack down on rogue social activity. As they deploy social computing environments, CIOs will pull the plug on ad hoc Facebook groups, grassroots Yammer installations, personal tweeting and other activities that jeopardize productivity, security and proprietary information.


9. CEOs will finally “get” social computing. Their own Web 2.0 experiences, combined with the business world’s increasing understanding of its potential, will prompt more CEOs to initiate, support and ensure the success of E2.0 initiatives.


10. [YOUR PREDICTION HERE] What do you predict for Enterprise 2.0 in 2010? Tell us in the comments section. In June at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, we’ll blog about the most popular responses. In December we’ll see who nailed it.

"

German media continues to demonize social media

A few years ago it was the German media proclaimed that blogs had no future simply because they would give away too much information about the users and that they could not be kept private.

I have found my blog to be a most valuable platform – and so do my over 5000 subscribers.

Yesterday I was shocked to see that they haven’t learned and that the witch-hunt seems to continue: only with a different “witch”.

Now German media outlets, especially the Westdeutscher-Rundfunk (Government-related tv station), has repeatedly aired programs which totally falsify information in context to social networks.

Therein they stated that the information which people upload and enter on to social networks are indexed by search engines instead of the truth that they are only searchable if I the user decide that they should be.

A long line of arguments followed, totally torn out of context, but the primary indicators that this piece of “information” was not really true was that Facebook had 2 million members.

While this may be true for Germans registered on Facebook it was not mentioned by the network that they have a few million more.

If this trend of negative propaganda should continue I think a lot of German companies will endanger their competitiveness on the global markets as they have done with not embracing blogs. Most German companies could be doing better in terms of search engine score and public relations work if they were to utilize these and other great instruments out there.

Let’s see what the next trend in 2010 will be and what stories German media outlets will come up with to demonize those.

Lars Hilse

Tell Me A Story......

For those of you that are on LinkedIn you know that I was working on a presentation for a group of executives on the topic of Web 2.0 or "social networking".

I had the opportunity to share my thoughts with the group yesterday, so now I am taking the opportunity to share my perspective with you and seek your perspective.

In short, social networking is about relationships and trust, not about technology!

I want to state for the record that I am certainly no tech whiz (I type with two fingers). I am no "hipster" as I am a 52 year old white guy.

The reason I say tell me a story is because I believe that social networking is going back to the future. Once upon a time there was no media, no newspapers, and very few books. In fact the vast part of the population was illiterate, and the controlling powers liked it that way.

We relied on an "oral" tradition. We passed along stories and legends from one person to another. We relied on relationships. I would submit that social networking is a return to that model, passing along information to each other.

As I have talked, written and blogged about the need for a new social contract I have consistently talked about three foundational concepts:

Engagement is a far superior environment to any other in a business or organizational setting.
The foundation of all meaningful organizational systems isrelationships between people.
Trust is the essential element of functional relationships and engagement.

The bottom line is you will never have engaged relationships with your employees, your customers, or your community without trust. Much of the "new" generations have lost trust in our current relationship infrastructure and models.

Management expert Gary Hamel indicates that among other things the "Facebook" generations embrace a number of new "principles" that you need to be aware of:

Contribution counts for more than "credentials"
Hierarchies are natural not prescribed.
Power comes from sharing information not hoarding it.
Opinions compound and are "peer" reviewed.
Users can veto most policy decisions.

If you take a look at these things they represent pretty profound differences from how management and leadership is taught and practiced. To quote popular songwriter John Mayer (for those of you unfamiliar with his music he was the guy that "dumped" both JenniferAnniston and Jessica Simpson, if neither of them is familiar to you then you live in a cave so it doesn't matter) "when they own the information they can twist it all they want".

And we do; the biggest concern about social networking I hear from members of the "greatest generation" and "boomers" is "how do I control what they say about me on blogs, etc?" the answer is you don't! You participate and contribute you don't control.

When I created my compliance to commitment model the third "pillar" is information. It is critical and the emerging generations haveunprecedented access to it. Social networking is also based on the most powerful force in the universe (in my opinion), the power ofrelationships.

When you have heard me talk about the "new" engagement model you have seen the five levels described by BlessingWhite:

Satisfaction
Loyalty
Recommendation
Best Product/Practices
Excitement and Pride

At the risk of being overly simplistic, I don't think you can create the higher levels without creating a relationship.

When you see how social networks describe those relationships they use words like "friend" and "connection". There is an implication of trust and shared experience.

For me when I write, blog, and speak it is always with that intent; to build and sustain relationships and trust. To inform, to share, and to solicit other viewpoints and perspectives.

So I will leave you with a couple of thoughts;

Engagement is the most powerful tool that organizations have to increase productivity, profitability, and sustainability.
Engagement is built on relationships and relationships are built on trust. Don't try to "sell" your idea, share a story and invite others to share theirs.

I am going to keep building "lighthouses" and telling "stories". I hope as I share them we will understand and join the "new" generations and build on trust and shared values. Commitment is better than compliance, period.

Mark Herbert