7 posts tagged “sap+global+survey”

Has corporate social media - that is Enterprise2.0 - reached its tipping point? Shel Holtz thinks it has - imho, it has not.

Malcolm Gladwell says tipping points have three rules:

1. Law of the Few
2. Stickiness Factor
3. Power of Context

Rule 1: Now corporate social media may have ticked the first rule - companies everywhere have evangelists for social media, those who are experimenting either off or on the company clock, and companies are increasingly supporting these individuals. Chris Brogan talks enthusiastically about social media toolkits and social media strategies. The latest Melcrum Blog has a podcast of IBM's Michael Kiess also talking about how to develop a social media strategy.

Rule 2: As for the stickiness factor, the jury's still out. In many cases, wide-spread adoption is still seen as technologically risky and, as Brenda Hodgson says, the theory is sound when talking to specific companies,

"...while telling people what not to do is generally easy, the challenge is always coming up with "best practices" within these niche areas."

Rule 3: The final rule is not yet met. Gladwell says that human beings are a lot more sensitive to their environment than they may seem. This one could require the generational tipping point from X to Y to be reached, as fear, uncertainty and doubt masquerades as derision.

That's not to say that companies shouldn't prepare. Shel Israel's rather excellent SAP Global Survey is coming to a close, and his early findings (bold added) suggest exciting times ahead:

• Social media is active and growing on all continents and most major islands of the world.
• As innovators start looking past blogs, blogs are taking off in the enterprise.
• All social media tools get adopted first by non-corporate users, then seem to catch on in the enterprise two years later. Video is hot now among consumers. Watch for massive corporate adoption in 2009-10.
• Social media tends to start with kids. Think of what that means to your enterprise moving forward.

Shel Israel's rather excellent SAP Global Survey attracts a response from the rather excellent Chris Shipley - credited as the person responsible for coining the term 'social media'. In her response, Chris reiterates that:

"By social media, I meant that community would play a fundamental role in shaping content. At that point, we thought that content might be seeded by writers/editors, but that the community voice would ultimately speak louder than that of the original writer. We saw the role of the media company as a facilitator of the conversation, not the producer/editor/arbiter of news and information."

Now, in a corporate environment, community is employees, content equates to information, and writers/editors equals managers. And in business, communicating is the single most important skill of a manager, whether it's face-to-face or in writing, down or up the hierarchy. Bernie Charland asks, with the advent of Web2.0, if managers are still the most critical and effective communication channel for employees?

Were they ever? If you believe that what gets measured gets managed, according to a 2004 study by Melcrum, only 21% of companies measured the communication performance of managers.

However, though these line managers may no longer to be gatekeepers of information becasue of Web2.0, a good manager's job goes beyond being a conduit. He/she also should be a trusted source of information - the sort of 'friend' you might want on a social network. So for social media in the corporate environment to even come close to supplementing this, businesses would have to follow Amazon's micro-store for every shopper approach, and develop a wholly unique communication experience for each employee. No wisdom of crowds here.

PS: Belated birthday wishes Shel! 

The latest respondant to Shel Isreal's SAP Global Survey into social media sees him describing 17-year old Ethan Bodnar as the 'future of social media'.

Quite an acolade, but one I agree with wholeheartedly. Not becasue I know Ethan - but becasue of his age. While internal communicators are trying to work out what to do with social media and explaining to peers and line managers why it should be part of the communication mix, it is second nature to those of Ethan's age.

There remains a small opportunity for companies to get up to speed - something that could be accelerated by giving a 17-year old licence to operate. Speaking to a colleague yesterday, we talked about how difficult it was finding people who really understood what communication was about. Similarly, when it comes to social media, most of us are just killing time until Ethan's generation come in and do what's natural to them.

Send Shel Israel your own answers to his SAP Global Survey. To be honest, I always thought he was going to ask those interested to send in their thoughts. Got to get my thinking cap on now.

Shel Israel's SAP Global Survey on social media has been answered by Doc Searls and Dave Weinberger. Just in case you don't know - let Shel pick it up:

"In 1999, four technology thinkers, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Christopher Locke and Rick Levine collaborated on a project.  The result was The Cluetrain Manifesto...While the SAP Global Survey is attempting to examine the varied views of where social media is going, there is universal agreement that Cluetrain is where it all began."

Robert Scoble has answered Shel Israel's SAP Global Survey, bringnig together again the two authors of Naked Conversations.

Given that the survey has another couple of months to run, I am sure that more interesting opinions will come out. It's a great project to witness unfold as the answers are truely fascinating and the people Shel is actually asking to answer the survey  - such as Tom Rafferty and Kami Huyse (whose rather fine Corporate Blogging 101 piece I just linked to yesterday under 'Resources') - is a who's who of social media.

Shel Israel, co-aothor of Naked Conversations, has set questions for people to answer as part of a global SAP survey on social media now and tomorrow.

1. How has the social media emerged from your perspective?
2. Where do you think social media will be going over the next 5-10 years?
3. How is social media emerging in the UK and EU v the US?
4. Are European businesses embracing social media? What about just in the UK?
5. What tools are they embracing? Do various cultures impact the tools that are gaining in popularity?
6. Do you see a difference in the way global enterprises are embracing social media v. small to medium sized businesses?
7. What similarities/differences do you see between C-level acceptance of social media and mid-management?
8. What are the biggest barriers to social media acceptance in EU business?
9. How is social media changing culture?

Answers are already coming in, from the likes of Gaping Void's Hugh MacLeod and Ken Camp of Digital Common Sense. This is going to be good.