9 posts tagged “hugh+macleod”

If you/your organisation understands the importance of social media - despite some drawbacks - and you have plenty of reasons for your colleagues to have conversations, then you have the foundations for nurturing an online community.

Jeremiah's finished a piece of Forrester research that outlines online community best practice and charts the life process of a successful community. He points out: "Above all, remember that control is in the hands of the members, so put their needs first".

This is aligned to Hugh MacLeod's point about the axis of social media: social networks are built around social objects, where social objects are the reason that two people are talking to each other.

By virtue of my job, I am a member of the British Association of Commuicators in Business (CiB), the "UK's leading professional body for in-house, freelance and agency staff involved in internal and corporate communications."

They send out a regular e-newsletter, which includes a message from the chairman, Suzanne Peck. This one was so off base - even though I went on my first ever pitch with Suzanne when we worked together many years ago - that it goes to show just how much the CiB has to change to become relevant.

First, putting an RSS feed on a page does not make a 'blog'. In fact, of Blogging's Six Pillars, this one ticks just one:

1. Publishable
2. Findable
3. Social
4. Viral
5. Syndicatable
6. Linkable

I can live with that.

But the argument that: "If a writer doesn’t have respect for one aspect of writing, such as an e-mail message, how can I trust his advice in another?" was just a ridiculous example of intellectually bankrupt moral high-mindedness. And I have an editorial background. So how to highlight the fact that a typo or three doesn't mean the writer doesn't care, or that the message will be lacking?

Although I haven't posted in a while - work-related stuff of which more later - I have been reading. And Hugh Macleod's post about Leo Burnett and Microsoft is perfect. And contains a typo. Do I care? Nope. Do I think HM cares? A pin-prick to his professionalism at the most. But disrespectful?

As Hugh's post states: "One world ending, a new world just beginning, and the people caught in the middle not liking either side of the deal, much." The CiB is trying to reinvent itself. I hope they succeed because internal communicators need a professional body holding a torch for them. If the CiB doesn't sort itself out, it will become part of a lost world.

There is increasing evidence that companies are beginning to come to terms with E2.0, but Information Week stills rightly asks if Web2.0 can evolve into an enterprise technology.

"...enterprises lag far behind consumers in adoption of Web 2.0 technologies. What's more, our online poll shows that interest in technologies such as blogs, wikis, and mashups has gone down during 2007, despite explosive growth outside the firewall."

One issue seems to be the incumbent culture in a company, something Andrew McAfee picks up on: "It’s way too early to despair, or even to start getting discouraged. We need to keep in mind that most E2.0 tools are new, and that their acceptance depends on shifts in perspective on the part of business leaders and decision makers, shifts for which the word ‘seismic’ might not be an overstatement."

As ever, leading indicators of shifts in enterprise culture come from outside the world of business. And one such indictor is that October was the first month when social networks overtook webmail in the UK.

Should you feel frustrated at the slow pace of change in your company, then Hugh MacLeod has an answer:

"Somebody in the audience today asked me what they should do if their boss doesn't like the idea of them blogging. I replied that if you have something interesting to say about your product, and if your boss won't let you blog, my guess is that he's probably an idiot, and you should quit your job and go work for somebody else.!"

Life could not be better for internal communicators. Yes, budgets are low, demands are high, measures are scarce and information overload is abundant. Enter social media. As Hugh MacLeod says, "even the smartest people I know in this space have little idea about what's going to happen next...we're basically making it up as we go along. But that's what makes it so exciting."

Yet many internal communicators are defensive, either unconvinced or uncertain about what to do - something I witnessed myself earlier this year at a conference and the sad conclusion reached by Melcrum again this month.

If it's fear or lack of interest, then "the answer lies in trial and error and motivation and in overcoming the fear that makes us avoid the topic in the first place," says Seth Godin.

So, what's an internal communicator to do?

Besides the latest pointers from, say Forrester or McKinsey, and musing on some questions, the one practical piece of advice is:

• Try it out  - your opinion will count for more based on experience. No harm, no foul.

To move on your one-person fact-finding mission and into the company:

1. Get a little senior support
2. Start virally - social media is more culture change than technology, and can be easy
3. Build bridges across your company
4. Think big

Internal communicators are at the leading edge of E2.0 - more so than the geeks. If you are unsure or unconvinced then you need to find out how E2.0 can help your company.

I am a fan of Andrew Keen's Cult of the Amateur because of it's relevance in a corporate environment. Not breaking news. And many who criticise his ideas are cut of the same cloth as those who call Microsoft 'evil', whom Hugh MacLeod loving calls "uncurious and intellectually lazy"

In recent months, however, many a curious and intellectually agile person has lined up to kick Andrew in the proverbials (no back-linking here!). To that distinguished list is added Euan Semple, who says in Feeding a Troll (ouch!): "I didn't think his arguments were convincing and certainly didn't reflect the views of many of the people he was attacking".

The Keen video is here. It might have been simpler just to point to Geek and Poke.

So notes Hugh MacLeod. He goes on to say that blogging isn't for everyone, Web2.0 is. This made me smile, as just today I began to prepare my thoughts for a trip across the pond to talk to a client about both. One caveat to Hugh's thoughts, imho, is that blogging is for all internal communicators.

Probably not, according to a friend of a friend of Debbie Weil.

Update: Props to Johnny Boston, CEO, Raw Digital, though how he knew to aplogise openly when he did not know about reaching out is interesting (scroll down Gaping Void for Fresh Meat as I have not managed to work out how to link to an individual post).

Need a compelling case for your business to have a Facebook precence? How about Paul Walsh's argument for using the system as a shop window. Hugh MacLeod agrees, and so do I - and not just because this cartoon of his is an all-time fave.

And with Facebook passing 30 million users last week, that tipping point for businesses can't be too far away.

Update: Here's Scoble's take on, among other things, the importance of Facebook.

The three parts of the communication mix that I have been thinking about recently are: social media (no, really), employee engagement and signature experiences. For sure, they are not mutually exclusive: if companies use social media to identify and/or reinforce their signature experience, then employees should be more engaged and all that that brings.

Example: Hugh MacLeod's Microsoft's Blue Monster. Started upon request for a group of Redmond employees, the Blue Monster and its tag Change the world or go home has, since January, become the unofficial mascot of Microsoft.

The mascot invokes a signature experience of passion, says Sarah Perez on her Friends of Blue Monster blog: "The Blue Monster represents the vision and the passion of the company's employees: so passionate about what they do, if they can't make the world a better place, they should go home."