Really Simple Social Media

Zero.

Implementing social media systems in a business will only add value with adoption and usage. JP asks: "Does it make sense to have asymmetric information within the firm? Once we start acting as if information has value by and of itself, it is only a matter of time before people start using this information to gain personal advantage within the firm."

That is why social media in just about all its forms requires openness, transparency and trust. But, for all their protestations, that's not how businesses typically function. So I'm a little surprised that Martin Koser is stressed by the fact that "Management is supposed to be [a] people business, it is inherently social by all accounts."

Management is, but business is not. Business is mainly about the bottom line. And that is why Susan Scrupski points out that many businesses think 'social' equals productivity drag.

But collaboration using social media can help the bottom line if it is in the flow, a part of the every day, part of the nature of a business. Rob Paterson asks, hypothetically I think: "Isn’t an underlying principle of 2.0 that it uses nature’s rules and hence should make everything a lot easier?"

For early adopters of social media, social media already is part of everyday life. The SF Web2.0 Expo is not the first to use live audience participation (this time through Twitter), and sometime soon many company staff events will follow suit - a trojan mouse if ever there was one.

Unlocking the ability of a business to collaborate, to activate a virtuous circle able to create new knowledge is where the value of social media in the business lies. As JP concludes:

"We should concentrate on providing good service and good product, concentrate on providing that service honestly and diligently. And the money will flow. Not by hoarding information, but by freeing it up. Collaborating with each other, within the firm, with our customers, with our partners, with our markets. Even with our competitors."

When every day in the calendar seems to have a 'day' associated with it, not sure how much traction Enterprise RSS Day of Action will have, but that doesn't make it a bad idea.

If you want a good explanation of the power of RSS and how you can jump-start it in your company, then today's as good a day as any to begin.

The associated wiki explains: "The purpose of the Enterprise RSS Day of Action on Thursday 24th April is to help raise awareness for the potential for Enterprise RSS."

There are a couple of short slide decks by James Dellow explaining more (props Martin Koser).

There’s a growing shift in the conversation around E2.0 away from the technologies and on to the culture change that will unlock the value of social/networking systems.

You would think that persuading the Board about the merits of a more open, transparent culture isn’t too uphill a task, especially when you consider the alternative and the negative impact on the bottom line. Ross Dawson writes in Trends in the Living Network of networked organisations, in which being more effective at ad-hoc communiation and collaboration underpins organisatinoal performance.

Susan Scrupski's post Corporate Antisocial Behaviour: the Enemy is Us refers to five reasons why projects fail, and notes: "The technologies we had prior to web 2.0 would enable employees to 'speak up.' Email, telephones, even notes passed under the door could have prevented huge cost overruns and errors, but technology – old or new – won’t fix these problems."

Whether it is inside or outside the enterprise, one message does not fit all anymore. So should internal communicators use the new web to lead a cultural revolution, or to feed an effort to make the company more open that rides on the coat-tails of another project?

It depends. Assuming you accept the need to change your culture, then a corporate rebranding effort would provide a great opportunity to kick-start what Susan calls 'social process re-engineering'. But rebrandings do not happen often.

For a more likely opportunity, any significant project that requires upfront change management and/or communication input - and to the converted, that would be all of them - could be used by internal communicators as a trojan mouse.

Andrew Keen writes, "We all now know [Web2.0's] technological strengths and weaknesses, its cultural accomplishments and failures, its economic appearance and reality." Lead or feed doesn't matter as long as efforts are made to change people's day-to-day views on the value of effective communication, and corporate communicators should by now have an idea of the what the new we means for them, their role and, crucially, their company culture.

Odd question posed by Ragan.

• Own as in who should start it? Anyone who has learnt what it is and thinks it's relevant, preferably someone in the internal communications team.
• Own as in maintain it? If it works and grows, then you need to speak to HR and IT. Get some community facilitators on board to help nurture the community.
• Own as in control the conversation/relationships? Shel Holtz says the employees that use it. That is, the community.

Social media internally or externally is not about ownership or the tools, but about the right culture of transparency and trust. Companies will adopt it if it is obvious there is a business benefit, and the learning curve (props Paul Adams) is steep and quick - and should be cheap.

Taking advantage of the new web in business - after all it's ultimately about the bottom line for business - is increasingly important. Forrester thinks that E2.0 could be a $4.6bn industry in the next five years. [Correction - make that $1.8bn - thanks Niall]

Enter Google - the world's biggest brand and cool enough and relevant enough to be more than a verb: Google links Gen X and Y. The former know its the de facto search engine, and for e-mail and maps, and the latter for a host of innovative applications and mash-up fodder.

Google has launched a new sandbox for iGoogle - and Scott Gilbertson believes it looks suspiciously like a proto-type social networking site. Scoble called it earlier this month, when he wrote how Google's five year plan to get into Enterprise was taking shape. Microsoft won't be too far behind.

Facebook has a real threat as heir-apparent to becoming the default social media homepage.

If newspapers are in decline because of social media, then when was the last time you went to Encyclopedia Britannica to find out something rather than Wikipedia? It's been a while.

Well, Britannica has moved on to what Shel Holtz describes as its 'first significant foray into the social media space.' Has it missed the boat? Hardly.

In Now is Gone, Toby Bloomberg is quoted as saying: "For those organisations...that think they have missed the virtual boat, it is moving out of dry dock; there is no need for swimming yet, but it is quickly picking up speed." The interview was dated June 14 2007.

There is an important lesson here for companies unsure of the idea of social media for internal or external use. Britannica decided to get it right, rather than get it first.

Dan Greenfield asks if agencies have 'Got social media?' As it's not about the technology, Dan rightly points out that agencies are "training their staffs and immersing them in the ways of blogs, social networks and podcasts [and] daylong social media immersion seminars for clients and potential clients."

Britannica has short-circuited the issue of taking clients and potential clients along with them by making bloggers the initial beneficiaries of its social media embrace. This is one of five social computing benefits identified by Rex Lee, namely: "A well designed social computing environment encourages interactive participation of the right people."

Britannica can never compete with Wikipedia. But its place as a by-word for expertly-researched and expertly-corroborated information, coupled with its social media programme, might just make it relevant again.

A couple of surveys show how much progress the new web has made in the enterprise, and also just how far there is to go.

Joe McKendrick flags a survey from Evans Data (registration required) of 385 corporate managers and developers that found:

• Most Web 2.0 applications are being targeted at internal corporate requirements, versus consumer engagements. Close to half of the survey participants are focused on developing applications for internal use inside their companies. Less than a third are building Web 2.0 applications intended for delivery on a subscription base to online users.

That's progress. So much is written about PR and marketing in relation to social media, so it is refreshing to learn that not everyone has forgotten about the need to internalise and unlock some of the value of conversation. Dennis Howlett says "CXO’s instinctively know that internal collaboration, whether through rudimentary technologies like blogs and wikis hold significant efficiency promise."

Preaching to the converted here, but back on planet Earth, it would no surprise to many that among the findings from a survey of 30 chief communication officers by the Arthur W. Page Society and the Corporate Executive Board was the following:

• Only 25% report having incorporated new media aggressively in the communications department's portfolio

Picking up the the baton to tackle some of the common issues that result in businesses waiting for all of the answers before making a decision, Shel Holtz addresses:

1. Resistance from the legal department
2. Lack of return on investment
3. Too labour intensive
4. Lack of expertise

Maybe the cultural change required to give up control of the message is another obstacle I would flag, though whatever the surveys says, Geoff Livingstone hits it on the head in Now is Gone when he warns, "It is incumbent on communicators to learn new media, not just on a thoeretical level, but as practitioners."

Michael Idinopulos writes that SocialText may have come up with the Facebook equivalent for the enterprise. It's SocialText people platform allows people to organise content around what their experience says about them rather than around people and relationships. It is in the flow and very much a part of everyday working life, and could be an answer to what is the killer app for E2.0.

The organisation of in-the flow content is vital. Seth Godin points out in What happens when we organise?: "Wikipedia works because so many contributors figured out how to self-organize into a group that produced something far more useful than a traditionally organized document."

Techcrunch underlines that the organising ability of SocialText is simple and compelling: "For a lot of enterprise employees, having a single dashboard with secure company information alongside fun or useful outside services on a single dashboard is exactly what they need. It also makes SocialText the center of a worker’s day, which means they far less likely to ever lose the customer."

If Facebook is the social media frontpage, has SocialText delivered the front page for business?

A couple of recent posts from Niall Cook and Ragan show that free speech does have a price.

First, Niall warns seeders and buzz marketers that from May 26, the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations Act comes into force in in the UK. The Act will hit those:

Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for the purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer.

Over at MyRagan (registration required), Jeff Dunsavage writes that SAP is being sued for $100m for failing to deliver an `out-of-the-box integrated end-to-end solution that increases...effectiveness.' The buzzwords sit at the heart of the claim from Waste Management.

The two examples are from different continents, one online and one in the real world, but both go to trust and transparency. Essential for social media to grow. Don't be stupid.

With content, comment and communities increasingly distributed, it seems that Zuckerberg and co are doing all they can to attract the social media community together by turning Facebook into a single source of conversation.

Alongside a chat facility, Facebook has managed to commoditise Twitter, Flickr, del.icio.us and such like into features on their system, as opposed to discreet systems in their own right. The Palo Alto group is also benefitting from a new application from Six Apart - Blog It - designed to broadcast content from Facebook to Tumblr, Twitter, Pownce, Vox et al.

Facebook fatigue was all the rage around the turn of the year, but these moves will be welcomed by many. All your social media are belong to us.

The developments brought to mind Tom Matrullo's recent great post An adjacency of opposites, in which he looks at Clare Hart’s and David Weinberger’s talks at FASTforward08. Hadley Reynolds highlights better than I could the relevant part of the post:

"For David, the core idea of his powerfully evoked image of 'the new front page' is that we have shifted the control of the structure of our information engagement from the owners of the content to ourselves as the community of users of the content."

And if Facebook is the new front page for social media and it's easier to start a conversation with many different communities simultaneously, then what happens next will prove interesting precisely because they are different communities.