Social Office

A couple of days back, I happened to read this report by Jakob Nielsen (via RWW) on social networking on intranets, that throws light on the enterprise use of 2.0 tools. From the RWW article

Neilsen’s 168-page report includes case studies from 14 companies in 6 countries, including Sprint, Sun, Intel, IBM, and Johnson & Johnson. Several times throughout the summary, he points out that when he asked these companies about their enterprise 2.0 strategy, they told him to come back in a year.

The report, a result of research done across 14 companies in 6 countries, highlights the pitfalls of both the quick adoption as well as slow track methods of using web 2.0 in the enterprise – risk to corporate culture and loss of employees who expect quick adoption respectively. The study points out that while the tools are important, it is what it lets people do and how it helps them solve business problems that actually matter, an emphasis on the sometimes forgotten fact that the new shiny object on the www need not be of use to the organisation and even the reverse – an old tool might work best for the intent/objective. It also highlights the different aspects that need to be taken care of, while implementing the tools in the enterprise – content, training, encouraging the community, speed of integration, open communication, the need for corporate communications to adapt to the reality of real-time and so on.

And in the end, were raised two things that I thought were the most important components in this discussion – the change in corporate culture it entails (especially the ‘knowledge is power’ tenet) and the time the implementation would take, precisely because of that (and hence the need to start right now).

The social media strategy (if any) of many companies is either the brand’s Twitter/Facebook presence and the ROI discussions for the same, or the use of these and networks like LinkedIn for actual sales (yes, broad generalisation). When compared to the corporate culture change discussed above, these are tactical uses of social media – utilising tools, for (usually and unfortunately) broadcast or direct selling. Yes, in some rare cases, the channels are used for two way communication too. (a story on Indian IT firms)

While many efforts are commendable, in many ways, the tactics resemble a building with a gleaming facade whose insides truly reflect the state of affairs – peeling paint, bad plumbing, poor service etc. These are bound to come out. As the Ad Contrarian wrote a couple of years back in his post titled ‘Brand Tinkering‘,

……………tinkering with the brand is way more fun than solving real business problems. Solving problems requires unpleasantness. Floors have to be swept and walls have to be painted. People have to be fired. Systems have to be changed. Products have to be redesigned.

The need for a more comprehensive approach to social media, and the need for internal change is something we often discuss here. On one of the LinkedIn groups I am part of, Pallavi Bhardwaj asked a question recently. It happens to be quite pertinent to this post, albeit in a tangential way. The question was ” Do you keep a track of employees’ personal blogs?” And its not just blogs these days – microblogs, social/business networking sites, and a tribe of self expression and sharing platforms that grows daily.

It made me wonder if this is related to the enterprise not keeping pace with the evolution of the web and its tools? Assuming that a company monitors employee activities, does it then (in addition to/instead of) ‘deal’ with the employee or question why something was posted/shared, and address that? Does it again show the need for control, rather than understanding the need for a change in the way business is done? A short term view instead of real strategic vision? I’m not saying that the immediate ‘fire’ does not need to be handled, but is a thought being spared for what lies ahead? Maybe, if the enterprise had a thriving communication and sharing network, and an efficient response mechanism, the need for ‘policing’ would be drastically reduced? As one of my favourite Dilbert strips says,

(meanwhile, down with the syndicate!!)

Perhaps, the brands who are just listening on the tools like Twitter, and using the information to change the fundamentals of how they do business are the ones who stand to gain more in the long term. As part of this, they could also be creating a culture, where each person is aligned to the organisation’s goals, rather than only the narrow focus of the department he works in. We really need more like Zappos, and more ‘culture creators‘.

until next time, enterprise..start the trek 🙂