Social Business Myths

I had planned to respond to Maz Iqbal’s post Social Business: snake oil or great medicine?  to agree it's not the software that makes you a social business but argue that social software can help an organisation evolve a more participative style.

Then I noticed an article by IBM's General Manager of Social Business, Alistair Rennie, who makes these points in Social Business Myths Debunked  published in the Financial Times (you will have to register, but it's free).

Key Points

• Social Business practices have a clear ROI (see The Dachis Group: 101 Examples of Social Business ROI)

• Social Business is NOT a new idea, business is inherently a social discipline. Social software allows us to broaden and extend this.

• Social business NOT just an IT project. Social business requires vision, leadership and conviction. Also experimentation, measurement, coaching and a shift in the way people do work.

• Tools alone can NOT transform an organisation into a social business. Technology is an important component, but focusing on tools is not enough.

• Social Business is more than jumping on the Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ bandwagon. It is about integrating organisational business processes with social components to achieve transformational business outcomes.

As Maz explains, to be a social business, an organisation must trust and value the expertise and contributions of staff. If this is not the case, software will not make you more social.

In summary, a social business takes advantage of a more transparent and participative way to manage the organisation, made easier by this new software.

But if you see the potential of engaging employees in new ways, are willing to lead by example, empower peer leaders and remove the cultural and organisational barriers you encounter, then this software might not be a bad place to start being a more social business.

Talk about the Passion

Welcome to the world of business where cool reason and objectivity make for sound management and decision making. At the same time, companies dream of products and services that elicit customer loyalty, admiration and passion.

How do you expect to have loyal, passionate customers, if employees don't have the equivalent passion for excellence?

Passionate people already impact company performance

An employee's passion is not mindless enthusiasm for the company and what it does. It is a commitment to what one cares about, and a willingness to fight for what one thinks best.

Studies also show how emotionally engaged employees are more productive and generate better outcomes. But the fact is, personal passions will drive behaviour in your business regardless.

Good managers know this and use performance evaluations or team structures to channel this energy toward constructive activities that improve services and increase customer value.

But what if this passion can be tapped on a larger scale.

Channelling passion can help drive change

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book "The Tipping Point" describes three archetypes that help push social trends (e.g. fads, epidemics) to critical mass. These personality types do this by wielding influence in different ways, but they all have "passion" in common.

• Connectors are passionate about people. They enjoy meeting people, understanding what they do and connecting them to other people.

• Mavens are passionate about their favourite topic (cars, films, etc.). They learn all they can about it and they enjoy sharing that knowledge.

• Salesmen are passionate persuaders. These charismatic people enjoy debate and love to get people "on-board".

Gladwell argues that these personality types, given the right context, seed ideas, lead by example and persuade peers, driving these trends. He calls this "The Law of the Few", but we know it as the 80/20 principle where initially 80% of activity is generated by 20% of the participants.

Social business tools can channel individual passion to meet organisational goals

This is where good social business tools and passionate employees combine to give management the leverage to institute positive change.

Business-oriented tools that mimic personal-use counterparts such as LinkedIn and Facebook, give people a way to discover and collaborate with others who share their passion. This also gives the company a vehicle to influence outcomes through shared goals and focused initiatives. 

Since customer service problems, wasted time and red-tape impact your employees, your customers and your bottom line, people can be very passionate about fixing them. These tools turn passion into crowd-sourced activities to generate and vet ideas, define and document best practice, and accelerate problem solving.

When employees are seen to make a difference, "The Law of the Few" will drive additional participation and, due to the relationship between how employees perceive your commitment to the customer and a customer's perception of quality, will strengthen your service operations and service culture.

So, with a "social" approach to help you solve old problems in new ways, you can use the commitment and passion of your employees to inspire loyal, passionate customers.

Recession proof value

It's funny when your instincts are validated.

I believe that the current economic downturn will provide opportunities for Social Software to thrive in companies.

I thought, that when times are tough, business challenges will make winners out of those who do more with what they have and innovate to differentiate themselves from competitors.

I knew from experience, that Social Software can help companies do this.

Then I stumbled upon a 2003 Outlook Point of View article on the Accenture site called "What Did the Winners of the Last Recession Do Right?"

Accenture researchers interviewed senior executives who experienced the global recession of 1990-1991 and compared those quantitative findings with return on invested capital of the largest US companies.

Aside from conservative financial management, the best performers:

• Set priorities based on detailed knowledge of how the company creates value.

• Leveraged unique information systems designed to give them the ability to manage and gain insight about their key value drivers.

• Collaborated with customers to improve value propositions and create new products that were suited to the same pressures facing customers.

• Priced for profitability and used pricing flexibility to pick up market share.

• Allows management to gather detailed knowledge, of how the company creates value, from a broad constituency, and refine this into priorities through a range of expertise and operational perspectives.

• Provide clear, effective strategy and governance based on these priorities, through collaborative best practice, transparency, and improved communication.

• Give managers the tools to manage their key value drivers through focused, self reliant, cross-disciple teams, which draw on the larger organization for support.

• Include customers and suppliers in value creation through shared communities of interest or direct participation in your internal processes.

• Create cost and value flexibility through innovation and effective use of talent using the collaboratively maintained and cross-referenced business resources.

If used effectively, that’s just what Social Software can do.
It will probably be a year or two before we find out if Social Software was a positive factor in the best performers coming out of this economic environment.

So watch this space...

Croquis (sketches)

As I learn more about social software and how it changes organisations, I am also struck by how much it changes me.

Up to now, the emphasis in business writing has been to make your case. This is usually a process of thinking though an argument or situation, anticipating objections and building your case paragraph by paragraph.

I am finding participatory writing changes this.

Recipients find it more helpful if you put a single idea, situation or risk across in simple, expressive, interactive language, using open-ended questions to inform and spark conversation.

This reminds me of an exercise from art school called Croquis.

Croquis are quick sketches, which don't allow the artist time to capture detail. After a session of ten or twenty, three minute Croquis, you find to your amazement, that you can capture the essence of a the subject with more clarity than in a much longer session. By doing this frequently you develop an eye for the important elements.

While I find it difficult to use short-form social tools like Twitter (tweets) and Facebook status messages, which have a limited number of characters for a message. I am finding that the more I participate, the better I get.

If you have not done so, join a social network, invite your friends and practice.

If you already have, how has it changed your communication style?

Executives vs. Communities

I was intrigued by a post by Mike Crocker on the Jive Software Clearstep site on “Getting More Executives Using Communities” commenting on another post by Steve Borsch.

This article reminded me of an experience with Lotus Notes, early in its adoption cycle.

Trying to find an application to win over executives, IT applied impeccable logic and decided that Lotus Notes had virtual discussions, executives had lots of meetings therefore executives could use the discussion application to conduct their meetings, saving time and money.

Of course, no executive would swap a meeting for a discussion thread. An executive’s strengths were in people skills, reading body language, non-verbal communication, assessing the person, their character, and their ability to fully grasp and implement a plan.

At the time, this perspective was lost to IT, which saw information more distinctly from its context.

It’s not that those executives were opposed to using technology.

If IT understood these underlying requirements and an application to help schedule, plan, and prepare for meetings was implemented, it would have been far more successful.

Steve Borsch’s article reminds us that different users have different personal as well as professional requirements from applications and the real challenge of communities is balancing these implicit requirements while fulfilling the communities’ purpose.

Executive buy-in is critical to the success of these systems within companies, and it must be made clear how these tools enhance and extend the knowledge and skills within the community, to get things done.

Yes we did (Social software and the Obama Campaign)

Now that the dust has settled on the US elections, you will find many news articles talking about how the Barack Obama team used technology to manage his presidential campaign. Many of these articles talk about his use of Email, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc.

The fact that the campaign used these tools is quite unremarkable, but they were used superbly, as an important part of a coordinated communication strategy.

Once you signed up to the website, you would receive emails from various members of the Obama team. You would be getting mail from Barack, Michelle Obama, Campaign Manager David Plouffe, and the occasional high profile democrat, each with a different voice and purpose, addressing you as a part of the team, and always with a call to action. The campaign combined management, marketing, and technology in a way that amplified the effect of each.

While effective, this was simply a brilliant communication strategy, nothing revolutionary. Some of the technology was new, and the internet provided new channels, but this was traditional, one to many communication, around since this stump speech and the pamphlet. Technology just makes this quicker, highly personalised, easily accessible and more sustainable.

No, the real revolution behind the Obama campaign was my.barackobama.com.

My.BarackObama, is the heart of an on-line community used by over a million members, providing tools to organise for Barack Obama through social interaction. Behind it is Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who tweaked social software to coordinate shared goals and meet very specific organisational objectives.

My.BarackObama, supplied the tools that staff and volunteers could use to connect to like minded individuals to organise various campaign activities. To keep activities focused, people would canvas their neighbourhood, and identify friends, foes, and the coveted undecided voters.

The campaign embarked on a 50 state strategy, even though some wanted to concentrate on only friendly and battleground states. A 50 state strategy could not have been possible without the massive fund raising capability, supported by the communication strategy, and local campaign offices supported by My.BarackObama. These two approaches proved to be synergistic, each enhancing the impact of the other.

The final result was an increased percentage of the vote from 2004, across the board, even in areas where they lost, setting the stage for future elections.

So did social software win the day?? Probably not.

Without a coherent strategy, committed workforce, and supporting organisational structure, My.BarackObama could not have become the effective management tool it was. But, in this context, I believe social software was crucial to the eventual ease of the Obama victory.

I doubt we will be running for US President soon, so what does this mean for us?

My.BarackObama proved that, in an organisation prepared to use it properly, social software can allow people to operate more autonomously, while giving central management more reach and greater flexibility. This allows an organisation to adapt to change, as it happens, while maintaining the discipline to carry out core objectives.

I believe the Obama campaign has given us a glimpse into the enterprise of the future.

Exploiting this new class of software, successful organisations will have the majority of it's activities performed by self directed teams, staffed by some internal but many external resources, from both channel and suppliers. While this will allow for a leaner organisation, it will require a higher caliber of management, with strong communication, mentoring and facilitation skills.

For more information, see the Wired article which inspired this post.