Look at your company website on your mobile. Does it look beautiful? Does it give you the impact you expect? Is that hard to fix? “Preposterous” is Chris’s new favourite word, and it applies to much of what is done in marketing today. Does your email newsletter look like your website? Are you proud of that? If so, why! Your email marketing isn’t about the design, it’s about building relationships. Email newsletters with no reply address? Why! Email is a two way communication mechanism. Have a call to action, to communicate with a human (Chris has a 70% open rate on his email marketing). It needs to be 350 words or less – if you are reading it on your mobile device, your customers are probably doing that too. Make it readable.

Likes (and their kind) are not an end in themselves. Likes, says Chris, represent an opportunity for business. No more names to broadcast too, or financial capital, but opportunities to be developed.Your sites and online presence are ‘outposts’ – they direct people to where you would like them to be. Create interesting, usable content – and that includes YouTube content too. And remember, you don’t get paid on views, you get paid on business results – so make it useful to your customers. In the same way that business cards aren’t sales, neither are likes or views.

Find the most passionate people in the business (and that might be customer service, it might not) and help them produce content and connect them with your customers! Think about the on-going use of that content. Oh, and make heroes, says Chris, make your buyers heroes. There are three stages of your brand, and the customer is central to all of them:

1. What you are known for.
2. What people say about you.
3. They way people use you as part of their story telling about their brand

Social is where people are. Social is the way that information moves forward. Brands ARE social. The ones that will be successful in the future are the ones that recognise that this is already the case. And remember, people don’t talk to logos, they talk to humans!

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Benjamin Zander talks about ‘one buttock playing’ – being pushed over by what you are doing, what you are communicating. There is a point at which what we are doing takes over our thinking about what we are trying to do. To a professional communicator, that might sound bad, uncontrolled even. But it is the point at which you connect with the passion, and that is the point at which what you are doing makes an impact. So much communication is killed by a lack of passion, a lack of conviction, and smothered in doubt.

We have to do the things we are uncomfortable with enough times that we get beyond that discomfort, beyond the conscious thought, and into a state of flow in doing it. Be it blogging, emailing, running meetings, playing music, whatever it is, push through the discomfort to find the place where you can just do it. Be practiced enough to be confident in your capability that you don’t look up (or look down) and drop your flow.

But there is something else in Benjamin’s talk. Notice how he is aware of what he is doing, and able to explain it, very coherently and eloquently. That comes through observation. In teaching others, and watching them practice, we learn even more – and learning from the mistakes of others is usually less costly! As we practice, we spot pattens that work, and patterns that don’t.

In short, we need to practice to get things right, that’s hopefully obvious, but that inherently means being comfortable with being uncomfortable. We have to make mistakes, and watch other people making mistakes, to get to the point where, in Benjamin Zander’s words, we are playing on one buttock. It’s a difficult one to explain to the boss, but ultimately, we need those shining eyes to make a great business.

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• Jenni Wheller, SSP UK.
• Rebecca Richmond, Melcrum.
• Christian McMahon, Global CIO, Jamaza.
• Justin Hunt, Social Media Leadership Forum.
• Doug Shaw, What Goes Around.

Interesting snippet from Rebecca from their recent survey – 50% of people were unsure of the business case for social media within the business (although 50% were).

Question: Are the senior leaders the right audience to launch a social tool to?

Justin responded that a lot of senior executives aren’t big users of social media outside of work. Is it reasonable to ask your staff to use them if you (as a leader) aren’t using the tools yourself? Justin reiterated a point I drew out during my presentation: You need to create a (safe) place for people to fail. Tools can change people’s experience.

Rebecca noted that leaders are risk averse – that can make them a difficult group, but that their buy in can help with the broader roll out. Jenni strongly argued that you shouldn’t force social media on people – it’s about giving the people the opportunity to use the tools, in an integrated way. Doug suggested getting back to understanding “why” you are doing it, and that the answer is there. Understand what works for the users. Not all users in a business are necessarily even on-line – at least during the course of their business – for example, shop floor staff (although technology is increasingly closing those gaps).

Question: Is employee engagement a fad?

Doug said he’s just trying to make work better – maybe employee engagement is an unfortunate tag? But there is something about letting go of the ‘command and control’ Taylorist model that has dominated recent centuries. There have been bad, as well as good, things done in the name of employee engagement.

Justin said it was about the delivery, and giving people chances to contribute. Jenni said it is inescapable, issues of work-life balance and fostering discretionary effort was essential. Rebecca said it isn’t a fad, because it’s not new, it’s just coming to the fore again now because senior leaders are panicking. It’s about what the business’s “employee value proposition” is, and ties into transparency, corporate social responsibility. Employee’s want to have an impact on their customer’s experience – a key business issue.

A strong theme through out the day was: Problem first. Technology second. It’s all too easy to say “social technology is the answer. What was the problem?” – be pragmatic, and start with a well defined problem was the wise advice. As employees become more comfortable with using social media personally, they are more will and expectant about using it at work.

Finally, the issue of failure, and it’s inherent ties with innovation and experimentation, was revisited multiple times. Businesses leaders can be very nervous about failure, and often rightly so, but it is an inherent part of the learning process and innovation, I defer to Edison.

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I received my first apology email today – one of the above businesses had an account for me. While no financial details were lost, my email address (and perhaps postal address?) were disclosed. More than that, my relationship as a previous customer was disclosed. It is worthy of note that in the UK, this is a serious issue for a bank (customer relationships are afforded special confidentiality), but for me it is a serious issue full stop.

The apology I received, in my opinion, fell far short of what I would expect. As a minimum I look for:

• A genuine acceptance that what happened was wrong.
• In as far as is reasonable, an explanation of what went wrong and why
  (i.e. does the offender understand? Is it under control?) – Not everyone agrees with this one.
• A commitment to a) put it right and b) ensure that it doesn’t happen again (i.e. lessons learnt).

Sorry should go beyond words. Actions speak louder than words, as they say, so I personally like to see some commitment to action – or as we said to our kids around here, sorry means “I won’t do it again.”

I’m not alone. Here are some thoughts on what should be in an apology from some good friends on twitter:

ear1grey
@benjaminellis An apology should be personal, recognise the error, take responsibility for it, and explain steps taken to avoid a repeat

shefaly
@benjaminellis Ack of the problem without passing blame, clear scope of the problem, how it’s being resolved. Then follow-up on resolution.

Modoufox
@benjaminellis sincerity, empathy, and an implied commitment to move forward in the relationship/avoid doing this again. #2centsworth

mistergough

tartancat
@benjaminellis The word ‘sorry’ in a genuine, heartfelt tone, and some offer to make amends for the wrong-doing.

ravinar
@benjaminellis 1) acknowledgement of issue 2) steps to ensure does not happen again 3) gesture of goodwill.

williamheath
@benjaminellis Acknowledgement, remorse, some sort of restitution. All wrapped in courtesy and humanity. Explanation/excuse not needed.

rachelbeer

“The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.”  P.G. Wodehouse, The Man Upstairs.

Which put me in my place :). Apologies should be given, not demanded.

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The evening was made all the more special by the judges personally coming over to say how impressed they were with what had been achieved. I shall stop typing and leave you with a photograph of myself, Sheila Parry and the amazing team from theblueballroom clutching our award, and the official press release.

DHL Express’ Innovative Online 40th Anniversary Celebration Scoops Digital Impact Award

FARNHAM, UNITED KINGDOM, Sep 21, 2010 — In 2009, a year of recession, DHL Express celebrated its 40th anniversary. To recognize this milestone and employees’ input with a splash yet without extravagance, DHL launched a global online employee photo competition, designed and built by internal communications specialists theblueballroom with social technology company redcatco. The competition and campaign won Communicate magazine’s Digital Impact Award for the ‘Best digital employee communication’ in the ‘Best use of digital to an internal audience’ category.

The competition generated a staggering 5.6 million hits and 2,800 photo uploads. The inexpensive, globally accessible online solution reached out to all 500,000 worldwide employees of DHL and parent company Deutsche Post DHL and sparked a truly cross-border, cross-level conversation: this user-generated ‘by the people, for the people’ platform saw 3,400 comments being made on the photos. Page views spanned the full three months of the competition, demonstrating ongoing engagement.

The competition showcased DHL Express’ amazing legacy and supported the company’s ‘One DHL’ brand positioning, which celebrates a diverse workforce, global expertise and uniqueness, and joint capabilities. theblueballroom’s expertise on inspiring communications for internal audiences, coupled with redcatco’s specialist knowledge on social technology, made DHL Express’ 40th anniversary a celebration to remember.

About DHL:

DHL is the global market leader in the logistics industry and ‘The Logistics company for the world’. DHL commits its expertise in international express, air and ocean freight, road and rail transportation, contract logistics and international mail services to its customers. A global network composed of more than 220 countries and territories and about 300,000 employees worldwide offers customers superior service quality and local knowledge to satisfy their supply chain requirements. DHL accepts its social responsibility by supporting climate protection, disaster management and education. DHL is part of Deutsche Post DHL. The Group generated revenue of more than 46 billion euros in 2009.

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Or are they? Who is the ‘me’ in ‘my own’? I could be Dave, the office burglar and still say this post is ‘my own’, and in doing so break no laws, and engage in no deception. You read this and assume that is it written by ‘me’. There’s a photo on the side of the blog, and a name on it too. It seems fair to assume that is me that wrote it. Surely if it was written by someone else, I, they or both of us would be deceiving you? What about if it has been edited and proofread by someone else in the office? Let’s step back a bit for a moment.

So, is ghost blogging ethical? It really depends on your definition of ghost blogging, and what it entails. I’m going to give you my answer before I give you a definition. To my mind, ghost blogging is rarely ethical, or at least it is rarely executed ethically. That’s partly a matter of my career path, in that ghost blogging, in the sense that many people mean it, is essentially allowing content written by someone else to be taken and passed off as your own original work. In the academic world that is plagiarism; a pretty fast way to end your academic career.

Now, you might argue that the original author has willingly given over their work – although more often that not a junior wage-slave was cajoled into producing the piece – and that that fact makes it alright. However, be it a staff member writing for a CEO or a PR company supplying copy to a professional blogger, to my mind it is still at the very least an act of deception. It is passing off a piece of writing as something that it is, in fact, not.

There is another definition of ghost blogging that is less commonly used, but that I am more comfortable with. The simple act of writing for somebody. Ghost writing has a long history. Often, celebrities or their agents will engage a ghost writer to produce their autobiography. It is slightly different than the most common form of ghost blogging, because increasingly often the ghost writer is acknowledged, and it is increasingly the case that people would assume a ghost writer has been engaged. Not to cast aspersions on Katie Price’s literary skills, but if you are reading her biography, you would probably assume that she had engaged the services of a ghost writer. Actually, Katie Price’s books are ghost written, by Rebecca Farnworth. And here is a distinction in the shades of grey in Ghost writing: Katie Price chooses the plots to her books. And the ghost is a shadowy entity; Not fully visible, but known to be present. That’s very different from the kind of ghost who’s existence is denied.

Here is the biggest danger with ghost blogging, especially for CEOs and senior figures: It’s the danger that a customer, business partner or other industry figure reads their blog that week. The believe, as they have been lead to, that the post represents the thoughts and views of the senior figure. Then they run into them in “real-life”. What happens as they strike up a conversation about the post that they read and enjoyed? The post that wasn’t written by the CEO, which doesn’t represent the CEO’s views. Firstly is the potential for the CEO to look like an idiot who forgets what he does from one minute to the next, and secondly it makes the customer look like an idiot for believing it was written by the CEO. Thirdly, it destroys trust between the two of them; Trust being the very thing blogging is meant to help with. That, for me, is the biggest no-no.

The roots of blogging were about being transparent, building trust, and ghost blogging goes against that. To be clear, I don’t think that is wrong for a busy CEO to have someone else write their post for them, particularly in the incidents where it is essentially based on an interview or conversation with them, or that they have at least defined the key points and main narrative. The idea of passing off writing that has never been past the eyes of the CEO as having come through the lips of the CEO is a dangerous thing to do. In the case of a speech writing, while the words might not have been the CEO’s, they have been spoken by them. The danger with ghost blogging is that the middle-man who is cut out is the person who should have been the messenger.

If a blog post is described as ‘written for’, rather than ‘written by’ the claimed author, then we are the right side of the line. If it claims to be ‘written by’ someone who did not originate its content, then a deception with no ethical grounds has been carried out. It is also a deception that leaves the perpetrators with nowhere to go. If there is something in that post that is factually inaccurate or professionally naive, then the CEO must either accept the error as if it was his own incompetence, or admit to the error.

Let me leave you with some words from an article in The Independent earlier this year:

In the film, adapted by Polanski with Robert Harris from his 2007 novel of the same name, McGregor’s professional author is enlisted by former Prime Minister Adam Lang, played with a Blairish glint by Pierce Brosnan, to write his long-overdue memoirs. ”So, how do we go about this?” Lang asks casually, drink in hand, in an early scene. “I interview you and turn your answers into prose,” comes the sober reply. And there, in a nutshell, is the art of ghostwriting.

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If it’s an area you are interested in, then I recommend reading The Art of Game Design (Amazon US or on Amazon UK). The talk attracted a huge stream of comments. While you may or may not agree with Jesse’s hypothesis that everything ends up being a game to earn points – although some corporate work environments already feel like this – there is much food for thought in what he says.

The legendary Farmville app has achieved massive success, outgrowing even Facebook itself, but making a Farmville knock off isn’t easy. It’s not just a Facebook game – it’s leading a new business model. Games have become a part of the marketing mix for brands, and game design techniques are bleeding into everything from office software to employee compensation plans.

The intersection leads to unexpected things, and nearly all of them involve psychological tricks, migrating people from free gaming experiences, to being fully paid up customers. Club Penguin is one of my favourite examples. Their  ”elastic velvet rope” (around a $350million proposition) enables children to play and explore their game world, all the time rewarding them and leading them into the paid monthly experience beyond the velvet rope, with the constant lure of ‘more things you can do’ in the paid for version. A little while back, it was Mafia Wars – a text based game on Facebook that used ’real friends’ juxtaposed into a virtual domain, where users could trade cash for (virtual world) social advantage. All cunning stuff.

Games, and the ‘freemium” model in general, often work on the ‘sunk cost’ fallacy – the psychological bias that if you’ve spent time (or money) on something,  it must therefore be valuable. It’s a ploy that bridges gaming, virtuality, and reality. Games are no longer about escaping from reality, they are about breaking through it. Gilmore and Pine’s hypothesis, in the Experience Economy and Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want,  is that the most valuable thing about products today is authenticity. That might seem strange in the context of games, but we live in a world where ‘fake’ virtual worlds are almost as valuable as the real deal. The convergence and divergence of technology is blurring the domains (even if I’m not sure I agree with Jesse’s pocket theory, I think it is more about expansion and contraction). Pockets of time can be used for crowd sourcing, by making activities into games (interesting in the context of Orange’s mobile volunteering initiative).

The next revolution is all about sensors, think of things like the gyroscope in the iPhone 4, and tilt sensors that are now in most new mobile handsets. These allow games and reality to be further blended (see Augmented Reality). I hope we don’t degenerate into the ‘life as a game’ Jesse describes at the end, but you can already see the motivational tricks being used. From the Waitrose Charity Tokens Scheme, to business games, the techniques are already being used to shape human behaviour, and that’s before we factor in phones that can overlay real-world experiences with virtual ones.

I’ll be talking about this, and more at Chinwag Local in Twickenham on Wednesday September the 8th. If you are in the area and want to meet with other local business professionals, I hope you can come along!

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On the last day of the event, I was talking with James Moffat (of Organic Development) and Glenn Le Santo. Rather than let the conversation float away, I caught it on video, and it’s been heavily retweeted and viewed:

And there in is my proof why you want Social Media at your event. Without the blogging team you might not have heard of the event, or seen that talk. Here’s my top 5 reasons to add social media to your event:

• It extends the reach of your event. People who couldn’t make it physically, can still see it.
• It extends the duration of your event. Why create all that great content to only last a day. Get it on-line. Let it last.
• Create conversations. Get feedback. People pay tens of thousands for focus groups. Find out what people think for a fraction of that cost.
• Have expert voices translate your message. All businesses speak in their own corporate speak. Bloggers from your customer base can translate your speak into customer-speak.
• Being direct. Unpolished. And credible. Yes, you can create a polished corporate video, but a 2 minute live on-camera interview pushed to YouTube is significantly more credible.

There’s plenty more. The fact is that having a social media team at your event is a very cost effective way to multiply the value of your event. Orange Business Services is one of those leading the way. Many others will follow.

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• A Year in Business – Orange Business Live

Amsterdam is a handy place for Orange Business Services to have an event – not so much because it’s one of the most connected hubs in Europe, but because the place is swathed in orange! It feels like they have branded the entire city. Location aside, it has been a timely moment to reflect on what has happened in the last 12 months since Orange Business Live 2009.

Helmut Reisinger, Senior Vice President Europe, Orange Business Services, kicked off the event, setting some local context, reminding us that 25% of the Netherlands is below the water level (the airport, where I landed, yesterday is 4m below sea level). Broadcaster Sarah Coburn, who is anchoring the event, joined Helmut for a review of the last year. It’s easy to forget how much the world has transformed in the last couple of years.

Post-Lehman Brothers, business attitudes and the financial systems have been transformed. In some ways, not as dramatically as some would like, but never the less they have changed. How are businesses now? “Cautiously Optimistic” is the phrase on people’s lips. We’ve gone down the waterfall, and are looking at the river ahead. But it isn’t just finance that has changed. From volcanos to oil spills, the environment is in sharper focus than it ever has been before. The impact for the CIOs here is two fold:

• Firstly, deploying technologies like telepresence to reduce travel and its associated carbon footprint.
• Secondly, looking at the environmental impact of the IT infrastructure, from data centres, to more efficient desktops.

Geography has changed too. Helmut talked about the shift to the emerging economies, and Yee May Leong, from Orange Business Services in Asia Pacific, joined him on stage to give some startling insights to China. I know China is big, but it is easy to forget how quite how big it is, and more importantly how big it will most likely become. And China is just one piece of the Asia Pacific puzzle, especially when you add India into the mix. ICT decision making is increasingly moving to China, and that is influencing service offerings for providers, with the focus moving from “5 star service” to “fast service” – getting new cities and locations up and running super-fast. The Asian economies, on average, are forecast to grow 2-5 times as quickly as the US and Europe over the next few years. That changes things.

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The theme of this year’s event is community relations. I think the term nicely encapsulates how “forum moderation” has grown up through community management to community relations. The relationship between businesses and their customers has changed, and the relationship between businesses and their employees is changing too. People expect engagement, and that means listening as much as talking.

Recent Redcatco projects have shown us, and some brave pioneers, that creating engagement works for a business, bringing massive returns from a modest investment. What happens when you give tens of thousands of employees a place to rate, comment and share what your business is about? Our experience has been that it creates huge value, a sense of community, and a great deal of success.

Earlier today I spoke with Heather Taylor about her work at PayPal. She has been living at the forefront of community building for a business that has to deal with both the positive and negative experiences around users transacting money. Her key takeaway? Be adaptable. You might not get what you initially set out to achieve, but if you adapt, you’ll end up with a stronger business. Focus on putting the community, rather than the product or service, in the middle, and on listening rather than telling. Lots of really sound advice from Heather, click and have a listen.

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The bonus from all this activity has been lots of face to face interaction and debate, from the Information World keynote with Elizabeth and Mia of the Continued Communications research team, through speaking at UKTI’s TechnologyWorld, to the amazing LikeMinds event in Exeter, Web 2.0 Expo and the recent Digital Surrey event. The next few weeks feature a huge number of events, as we escape election (and post-election) fever. The schedule for just the rest of the week is:

• 13th May - Being-Social – , 2-6pm, London. Where I will be chairing the ‘How Social Media is changing how we communicate’ session, joined by Andrew Davis Antony Mayfield Chris Thorpe David Cushman Jamie Riddell.
• May 14th – Higher Ground:The future of social and digital media in HE - London, for CASE. Opening, and joined by Abigail of The Blue Door.

With much more coming up, but more on that later. There is still time to book for Being-Social tomorrow, with just a few spaces left. The full speaker list and programme are here:

• http://www.being-social.com/programme/
• http://www.being-social.com/speakers/

And I am looking forward to getting back to my roots in the Education community on Friday. All of this has required some careful diary management! It is amazing how much backwards and forwards email and phone calls a simple shared diary system can save, likewise, sending event participants a diary invite with the event logistics in may seem a bit cheeky, but at least you know they have the details somewhere that they can find them on the night before. Standards like iCalendar have made diary sharing and synchronisation relatively easy, even in mix Mac/PC/Linux environments.

Here’s to a busy (social) life!

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Success has its challenges. Anyone who has a web presence already popular with visitors, but wanting to increase the use of the site, as well as attracting new audiences, has a tall order on their hands. On Thursday I spent an evening in the company of the Gumtree crew at their Richmond offices, along with a number of notable UK bloggers. It turned out to be an even better evening than expected, as I won a pair of Bose headphones and came home with a nice bag of goodies too.

A New Web Look For an Old Friend

Gumtree just celebrated its 10th birthday, having started as a local London classified ads and community site. It has grown into an international business covering 6 countries and 60 cities, hosting 2 million on-line ads in the UK alone. Clearly it’s not a business that is standing still, and has learnt a lot in 10 years of the on-line world.

Regular visitors to the site might have spotted the “Gumtree’s changing” message and link at the top of the site. Clicking on it lets users take a sneak peak of the site new design. They have managed to pack in lots of new features without completely crowding out the page. It is busy, certainly, but not confusingly so.

Collecting Feedback – Taking Users on the Journey With You

The way that Gumtree are managing the migration is a model example of how to do it:

• Giving early adopters the chance to opt-in.
• Explaining the changes and gathering feedback.
• Providing the option to opt back out,  with the option for feedback.
• Discussion forum for users to share their thoughts with each other.
• Rapid iterations, based on customer feedback.

The look and feel of a web site has a huge impact on users’ trust levels too, and Gumtree knows it. The new look feels more ‘solid’ in terms of its appearance and more ‘transparent’ in terms of exposing features and what the site it about. Key functions are grouped together logically and the graphics and icons make things more intelligible. The graphics add, rather than distract. I wish more web designers thought this way. Simplicity should always win.

Even More Local

Back in 2008 I wrote a blog post about going Hyper-local. Location based services weren’t new even back, but now services have matured into location aware (Rummble, foursquare and Gowalla to name just a few) and location-based (services based around a particular locality). While the spotlight has been on the explosive growth of the location-aware services, a quieter revolution has been happening in the location-based arena.

If you have a business with offices, it is fairly straight forward to put them on the various mapping services, and create a page to let users know how far away they are from you, and even to provide directions. Go ahead, scare yourself with the Geo IP Tool.

Things become significantly more complicated for a listings site like Gumtree. Listing and searching by a location name is a complicated matching process. How do you define where you live? It isn’t a simply post code or a city name, e.g. Angel in London, is that NW1? If I am on the edge of a postcode, postcode lookups become fairly meaningless.

Over the last 10 years Gumtree has amassed a huge amount of data about how people describe localities, and they are working on applying this to more user-friendly geographic and radial searches. Doing so will enable then to expand their emphasis from the more central city locations, out to the sprawl of suburbia. It’s clever stuff.

The Old Guard

Going back to where I started this post. The challenge with change is the old guard. Even if something is broken, there will always be people who like it that way. It’s their broken, they know it and are comfortable with it. Whenever you make changes, you are going to upset people. The key is to win the old guard over, and bring them along. It seems like Gumtree are doing a great job of that. A great example for others to follow.

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I’m literally just back from the Like Minds conference in Exeter. I say I’m back, but between the ongoing conversations on Twitter and the comment exchanges on the flickr photos it does feel a little like I am still there. The event was an excellent opportunity to transfer the on-line conversations about business culture, technology trends and the social aspects of business to off-line, into face to face discussions.

Facebook and other social media are now the most visited web-destinations in the world. The way that employees and customers communicate has changed, it is now down to businesses to catch up. I caught (or maybe that should be cornered!) co-organiser Scott Gould on camera, at the end of an exhausting day, to explain some more about Like Minds:

I used my mobile phone to record the video, as I’d lost track of where I put down my HD video camera in all of the excitment, but it serves as a useful reminder that anyone in a business has the tools to be a content-creator. It doesn’t take expensive equipment, or huge amounts of time. We have the technology to enable anyone to communicate with everyone, and that changes how businesses should communicate. The pandora’s box is already open, and businesses and employees alike are riffling their way through its contents.

I’m very sure that Trey Pennington will have some excellent videos of his own, but I managed to catch him on the other side of the lens after his panel, and had him explain his perspective. The words at the end of this video are still echoing around my mind. As we emerge from the current economic challenges, however long it takes us, history suggests that there will be a shift in emphasis away from financial drivers towards the more ‘social’ people-centred aspects of business. From employee retention and engagement, to new styles of marketing to customers, businesses need to be ready:

I enjoyed the opportunity of speaking on the panel after Olivier Blanchard. (aka the Brand Builder). I’ll share the thoughts from that in another post. As I took to the stage to speak, I was actually very nervous – here’s the back stage experience:

It can feel like that for many employees when they are asked to ‘do’ social media, or edit a wiki or write a blog. Not everyone is a natural communicator, and building effective people-to-people communication systems requires keeping that in mind. Not everyone wants to be ‘on the stage’. That means it’s not just about training people to use the tools, it is also about training them to understand how to use them effectively and responsibly. Most training seems to fall at that first hurdle, and never attempts the second. Like Minds has challenged me to raise the bar on the training we do, both the in-house workshops, and the more regular courses. There are broader issues to tackle. As one member of the audience explained, with his struggles to reconcile being a company director during the week and a partying rugby player at the weekend, the age of tagging friends in photos has no respect for neat work-life social boundaries.

I travelled down to Exeter the night before, which enabled me to meet the other speakers, as well as the local Lord Mayor – I have to say, from this speaker’s perspective, it was the most well organised conference I have ever attended. Scott and Andrew Ellis’ attention to detail is unrivalled and I am deeply grateful to both them and their patient team of assistants.

But back to that train journey the night before, and something that would have been most unlikely in the days before Twitter. I’ll let fellow speaker, the amazingly high energy A. J. Pape of Future Considerations explain the story:

Business success is intimately linked to an effective communciation infrastrature that not only allows knowledge to be gathered, stored and distributed, but also supports the working relationships that people need to function inside and across businesses. Social Media is becoming the de-facto communications medium, and while many businesses still have their head in the sand, an enthusiastic band of likeminded professionals are hard at work putting this new technology to good business use.

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Techcrunch was quick to pick up on Eurostar’s lack of use of Twitter, and slam UK agency We Are Social:

“It owns a Twitter account at @little_break, allied to its marketing site Littlebreakbigdifference.com. This was registered and run by “conversation agency” Wearesocial.net. This is an agency which claims to be expert in the use of social media platforms like Twitter to communicate with the public. They appear to be slow to waking up to the crisis.”

Of course those that work in marketing in large businesses will know that there is a big difference between a marketing programs agency, a PR company and a crisis communications specialist. Campaigns-based agencies are rarely tasked with crisis comms, and in this case it would appear that We Are Social were retained around a specific campaign, rather than more general umbrella. Robin has responded on We Are Social’s Blog: A note about today’s Eurostar crisis – Within 24 hours the company had posted a video on YouTube and was tackling their communications.

In this instance, I’m fairly sure people affected weren’t asking for help on social media, and there was a more fundamental failure of communications and systems, but by day two people did want to know what was happening with their travel arrangements and bookings, and were asking on-line.

James Whatley of 1000Heads summed it up well in Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Brand Republic has a good write up on Eurostar’s next steps, which include cancelling their planned 2010 marketing activities, and re-aligning them, given where they now are.

All in all, it’s a pretty sorry tail, on one hand, Eurostar’s handling of the situation, logistically, seems to have left much to be desired, on the other, the focus by some blogs on the social media aspects shows a lack of maturity and understanding of big business. Just over a week on from the event you can see the ride that We Are Social has had.

The big take away is this: While social media might be many things, it is also another communications channel, which means it should be monitored (listened to!) and responded to. And that means not just on a campaigns basis. Also, in times of crisis, it can be a very effective, low effort, way to get information out – especially if you want to reach journalists!

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I don’t need to recrunch the ’social’ thing but it is an important factor that in my mind amply illustrates the lack of intellectual rigor around solution creation. It is good to see that in the discourse even my sharpest critics have acknowledged the emphasis and use of ’social’ as a dreadful mistake.

I think the ‘social’ thing is such an issue because it is one that very few technologists are able to get to grips with. There are notable exceptions, Dennis and Stowe Boyd amongst others. In the business 2.0 context the word ‘social’ has become burdened with a whole set of meaning that has little to do with the ‘social’ (small ‘s’) or ‘Social‘ aspects of business, but it is still an essential part of the debate, as Dennis goes on to say:

Last Friday I met a pal of mine who is in the business of implementing change. He argued that people don’t like change. It is too disruptive for many. Think about all those contradictory stats that talk about dis-satisfaction with technology but then the same people would not change what they have. Familiarity is comforting. At a time when many people are more concerned about job security than shiny new toys, it should be no surprise that implementing an E2.0 project will have a slim chance of success without the sponsorship and active participation of top management.

Finally, and here I am putting on my social psychologist’s hat. The nature-nurture debate that has rumbled on for more than 50 years among socpsych types shows no signs of abating. These key concepts have a place in our understanding of what can work but are largely ignored in the discourse.

The traditional nature/nurture debate Dennis mentions has formed the basis of many an undergraduate essay over the years (“Are you a product of your genes, or of your environment? Discuss”). However, it has been replaced by the more careful study of epigenetics – understanding the way that the environment interacts with our genes, enabling and disabling them. Conversely, our genetic make-up also influences our environment in a transactional sequence that changes it as it changes us. An irritable baby that never sleeps is eventually going to have tired, irritable parents. And how those irritable parents interact with the baby and nurture it may shape which of its genes become activated or deactivated, shaping its development.

And so, back to social computing, Web 2.0 and social media in business. When Dennis’ friend cites the importance of “the sponsorship and active participation of top management” it is worth thinking about why that is so important. The reason usually isn’t the obvious. Management sponsorship is a form of social proof that taps into the social dimension of business – culture. Business culture can help or hinder the adoption of 2.0 technologies, but 2.0 technologies are disruptive to the traditional power-bases and communication structures within the business. The two things dance an intertwined-transactional dance. Social software changes the cutlure, but culture also changes the way that the software is used. For me  that creates a demand for careful ‘social’ design, to get the technologies adopted, and then careful change-management to pick up the pace and the full benefits in creating a more dynamic and innovative business culture. A place where ideas emerge, are captured and nurtured, and delivered to customers.

Lastly, back to a comment in Dennis’ post that caused a wry smile as I sat reading it: “cult-ure” versus “culture”. Some businesses have very, very strong cultures. They resist change because they are as much cult as company. When the cult is working, that is amazingly powerful – they preserve their culture even with rapid growth, and smash through any obstacles in their way. I think you know the kinds of business we are talking about. But, and this is a big but, when the market changes, and the cult does not, the business heads for the rocks. Traditional change programs almost inevitably fail, but even in these toughest of environments, I believe that ‘social’ tools can create change.

The traditional IT and management paradigm is that we are a collection of individuals using IT tools. That frame misses the most powerful forces that business leaders have at their finger tips. A business is a community, and sometimes multiple communities, that communicate and interact with each other (both intra- and inter-). That interaction is increasingly dominated by technology-mediated communication, and that communication (or collaboration) technology is less neutral than people think. It can be culture forming.

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The conference examines how social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, are having a major impact on business practices and culture. How can these tools be utilised, how can you employ strategies within your company to increase profitability, sustain reputation and empower your employees to be brand ambassadors? Indeed should you employ internal social networks within your own organisation as a means of facilitating a sharing community amongst your employees, or should you use public open platforms?

I’m looking forward to catching up with familiar faces and joining in a healthy debate about the way ahead for social media in business. There are over a dozen speakers, all active practitioners with hands-on experience, which should make for some good talks and lively panel sessions.

Over the next few days, with the help of iPadio, I’m going to do my level best to speak to each of them about their experiences and what they’ll be talking about on Friday. Here are the conversations I’ve had with folks on the phone so far (I’ve been on the phone a bit!): You’ll find more interviews, and can listen to them live as they happen on the SMiB site.

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1. Corporate Technology in the hands of Citizens

2. Physical is increasingly Virtual

3. It’s about Distribution not Destination

4. Mass Niche not Mass Groups

5. Broadcast Control is now Self Scheduled

6. C2C is more powerful than B2C Communication

I’ll tackle them one by one, together with liberal use of quotations from Jonathan’s paper:

1. Corporate Technology in the hands of Citizens

“The commoditisation of technology has enabled many of us to access, use and develop upon tools and resources that once were reserved only for large organisations – or those with deep pockets… …Creating trust and value is far different than raising money to spend on marketing. The skill sets required are rarely seen in standard business… …It signals a redefinition of products, services, marketing and advertising communication.”

Back at the start of the decade, when I held the strategic marketing role in a large IT company, I remember frequent discussions about the future consumerisation of corporate IT. Well, it has happened. Consumer technology is now far ahead of most business IT today. The users have stormed the castle, and they are now informed consumers.

2. Physical is increasingly virtual

“Now we have the tools to express, purchase and discover things without physical entities being necessary, we increasingly do so.”

The key here is the disappearance of “place” – a theme from “The Future of the Workplace“. Businesses, unconsciously, are built around “place” – employees meet together. They go to meet customers. They go to visit other employees. The implicit design of most businesses is based on staff “in the office”. This is in the same businesses that are turning workers into remote workers in droves. It is in the same companies where a huge chunk of the work force don’t even have a desk in the office anymore. “Place”? It’s dead.

Redesign your business so that it works regardless of place, before it becomes an island. Enabling remote working is only the first phase. The more important and challenging task is replacing the things that “place” used to give to staff. VPN technology, email blast communication and a shiny laptop alone do not provide it. If you believe they do, you are missing the way that informal communications glue your business together today.

“Technological advances in augmented and virtual reality will fundamentally redefine what our future generations perceive as ‘real’.”

3. Its about distribution not destination

I differ with some of Jonathan’s thoughts here. AOL and others existed because Google did not, at the time. In those days people needed an on-ramp to the Internet, a starting place. Today Google serves that purpose. There is a hideous phrase from my Business Technology 1.0 Days: “end-to-end.” Everyone was offering “end-to-end” solutions. I once joked, with my CEO present, that “end-to-end” seemed to mean “all the things that we make, and none of the things that we don’t”. His wry smile told he already knew how empty the phrase was. The reality is nothing is “end-to-end” in the business world. Anything that is, is a dead-end. Obvious, right? Less flippantly, money moves around. Create flows, not buckets, build ecosystems…

4. Mass niche not mass groups

“Individuals can be in numerous communities of interest – but the ‘age, gender and location profile’ may differ substantially.”

The marketing of the future is about psychographics, not demographics. That’s one of the main reasons I spend most of my time studying psychology these days. The future is more about groups and communities, than individuals. Marketing courses don’t teach marketeers and communicators the skills they need to deal with ecosystems, rather than people, at least none that I’m aware of.

“Any level of assumption when dealing in personality based communication will lead to negative experience which is damaging to all involved.”

The traditional marketing tone of voice is increasingly irrelevant, patronising, misdirected and little believed. That people write in a style they would be unhappy to be addressed in speaks to something very broken in business communications today, both internally and externally. It’s time to move on. We’re not running a TV station, and that’s probably just as well.

“The media that society is connected with – or social media as it is called – is a new science involving the inter-relationships of real people who are not a number or a demographic subset.”

5. Broadcast control is now self-scheduled

Broadcast is dead, or at least it will be significantly less dominant, especially if it doesn’t figure out a new business model. It was funded by interruption marketing (advertising 1.0), which can’t afford to support it anymore (thanks to Google and the on-line world), and is being strangled by technology (TiVo, Sky+, V+ and anything that looks like a PVR). The revolution won’t be televised, it will be time shifted.

“…the government of Singapore banned TiVo, citing the potential adverse impact on the local media industry if usage were to increase. Which it did. The Singapore government faced extreme difficulty in regulating the use of TiVo, as individuals were bringing in sets from overseas, over-joyed at the ability to finally control their own experiences.”

Deputy MD of Fox International Channels, Jason Thorp, said at the time: “There are a whole host of issues that broadcasters and advertisers are currently facing, and about to face, that are going to irrevocably change the business. A creative response will be the only solution to all of them.”

The result? Culture will simultaneously fragment and aggregate. Broadcast TV has created shared experiences and meaning for the post-war generations. The way it does this for the next generation will be different. In a world without broadcast, shared experiences will become an increasingly important part of people’s lives. Smart brands get this already (Magners UK, I’m looking at you).

“Forcible relationships are never productive. The see-saw of control is never healthy if heavily stacked against one side.”

If your business is, in anyway shape or form, dependent on broadcast (internal or external), redesign it now. The people of the future will not stand around to be shouted at. You have to earn their attention, and then keep it.

6. C2C is more powerful than B2C communication

Read Jonathan’s piece, especially what he has to say about “buzz marketing”. There’s a herd of people out there doing untold damage to themselves, their brand and their customers. In the Broadcast Anomaly I attempted to articulate that the current changes are not about something emerging after the broadcast era, they are about things re-emerging, that have been suppressed. As Jonathan puts it:

“At the time of writing, the buzz-phrase ‘word of mouth’ is being lauded as an incredible new invention. The term ‘conversation’ is a very ‘2.0? thing, apparently. It’s almost like personal interaction is a new thing, whereas it pre-dates everything else.”

Person-to-person communication outweighs business-to-consumer communication by an order of magnitude, on any number of measures. In the media age, businesses have evolved their communications channels to be narrow, highly controlled funnels. In doing so they have left themselves ill prepared to deal with the skills and scale required to get  to grips with what many call “the conversation.”

For businesses to survive, they must get to grips with the fact that everyone is in PR now. Everyone is in Marketing. The fastest growing business I have worked for understood that, at the time. It was one of the factors that lead them to be the most valuable company on the planet, for a moment. If you haven’t already, check out Zappos and how they interact with customers.

“To accelerate communication power, businesses must learn from the way that citizens interact most effectively… …When we build relationships, we learn about each other. This is a two-way process… …Many of the practices I see heralded at conferences, are analogistic to hiding in the bushes outside someone’s house, breathing heavily and scribbling down notes on a pad for later use. When we best learn about each other, we find common ground. We look for areas in which we can be valuable to each other.”

The writing isn’t on the wall, it’s on the web, and from there, everyone can see it. Read it wisely.

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“Britons are more willing to cut back on holidays and meals out than on spending on communication technology during the recession… … spending on mobiles, the internet and TV is regarded as a higher priority than almost anything except food.”

Time to revisit Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs

Curious indeed. I shared the link via Twitter and the ever provocative Camille Mendler of the Yankee Group (and I mean that in a good way) tweeted back. It struck a chord with a series of recent discussions, so I’ll share them here.

Let’s leave Maslow, just for a minute, we’ll come back to him. The way we are using the Internet is subtly changing. The study highlights a dramatic rise in the use of social networking websites. 19 milliom people in the UK, that is around 50% of the internet-using population, spend an average of six hours a month on Facebook. That is a 50% increase from four hours a month back in the previous May.

It’s not just a phenomenon among young people. Quite the opposite.The proportion of 25 to 34-year-olds claiming to have a social networking site profile grew to 46%, while the figure among 35 to 54-year-olds rose to 35%. The only group shrinking was the 15- to 24-year0old group, down by 5% to 50% – perhaps they are trying to avoid their parents on Facebook?

This shift in Internet use is relevant to Maslow’s Hierachy of needs. Just in case you missed, Maslow’s article ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’ appeared in Psychological Review back in 1943, and was the foundation of his book “Toward a Psychology of Being” (on Amazon US and UK). In it Maslow proposed a five tier model to describe human motivation. It is a theoretical approach, rather than an experimental finding, and Maslow himself revised the model in his later works. That said, it has become the foundation for a sea of thought, from sales theory to engaging employees. The five tiers are:

• Self-Actualization
• Esteem
• Love/Belonging
• Safety
• Physiological

Essential, each level of needs has to be fulfilled in order to reach the next. If needs at a lower level are left unmet, we focus back down at that lower level, so the theory goes. Taking the levels in more detail, one by one:

Physiological Needs

We all need to eat, to drink, to breathe and to sleep. Without these, we rapidly fail to function and everything else becomes meaningless.

Safety Needs

We require shelter and protection from physical harm. Exposure to the elements or attack will obviously impact on your physiological needs. Beyond that we seek longer term security, for example paid employment or knowing that we will be provided for. We don’t want just to survive, we want to know that we will survive.

These first two tiers are reasonably well served in western society, although not as universally as one might home. Moving on from the lower levels it starts to get interesting, and somewhat surprisingly, we come back to broadband:

Social Needs

We need a sense of belonging. That might come through friendships, or membership of a group of some description. Something we are part of that is a place for giving and receiving love, in its various forms, is required to meet these social needs. Think: Belonging.

Esteem Needs

We all need to feel wanted and valued, consciously or not. Simple acts, like being recognised and receiving attention from others, protect our self-esteem. A healthy self-respect, a sense of having achieved things, keeps us going. Without these, we are unlikely to feel fulfilled. There are a raft of psychological theories that exist at this level. Simply remember: Attention.

Self-actualisation

This was the subject of much of Maslow’s later work, but that is something for another time. For now, suffice it to say that at this highest level, people become motivated by more social causes and issues such as justice, truth, wisdom and meaning. Operation at this level is often evidenced by the acceptance of facts and the celebration of capabilities like creativity and problem solving.

As a side note, this model seems to hold true at a corporate level as well as a human one. I believe there are companies that achieve “self-actualisation”. They are rare, but I have had the privilege of experiencing them. I recognise themes from the periods of peak growth at both Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks. There was a sense of meaning that was common across the who;e business, and values like justice and wisdom were held in high regard.

So, back to those British broadband users… Social Networking sites like Facebook, enable us to keep in touch with friends. Remember that requirement to belong? To be needed? Simple acts like commenting on a friends status update, or knowing that others might be waiting for our next status update, tick boxes in the hierarchy of needs. For better or worse, broadband is becoming the pipe that provides social fuel on that journey towards self-actualisation.

I’m not making an argument to justify broadband as some sort of basic right, or even an essential service – that is probably a step too far. I am pointing out that broadband pipes don’t just feed us with information, they provide us with much needed social contact too. The Internet of information has become the Internet of people. In doing that, broadband has moved itself from “nice to have” to “nicer to have.”

While people said that they would cut back on going out for dinner (47%), DIY (that most serious of British addictions – 41%) or holidays (41%), only a tiny minority (10%) would be prepared to cut back on their broadband.  It would be intersting to know about more about the survey, as the identification of the surveyors may have skewed the answers.

Maslow’s hierarchy hasn’t changed, but the role of technology within it has. Businesses need to take note here. People have embraced ‘digital intimacy’ as part of their lives. Companies that don’t provide tools to support social cohesion will eventually suffer. Yes, I guess I would say that, but I’m happy to hear counter arguments.

Throwing your staff out on the road, or sending them off to work at home, without providing on-line social tools, will impact on the effectiveness of your business. Staff turnover will increase, communication will dry up, and the creativity that is so vital to innovation will disappear. Alarmist? I don’t think so. Look at how people are using technology at home. Those expectations are coming into the work place. Look at the importance people place on it. This isn’t a fad, it is a change in what the Internet is all about.

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The idea that a community can get together and self-organise an event is still a refreshing one, but when Farhan first suggested the idea of Tweetcamp I knew it was going to be something a bit different, pushing at the boundaries between the on-line and off-line world. What was it about? I’ll let Farhan explain:

TweetCamp is about bringing communities together, in real life.  It’s about accelerating the conversations that happen on Twitter, in real life.  It’s about creating richer, more personal connections… …It’s all about bringing the people together who you know from and through Twitter, into a physical space, and then having some of those great conversations and interactions you would have online, but in real life.

You can get a feel for the day by watching the video I put together:

The process of on-line to off-line bridging is something I pursue in the corporate space. On-line platforms work best with people who have met off-line and interacted face-to-face. Similarly, on-line tools let people sustain relationships when time and distance – from remote working or hectic schedules – would otherwise curtail them. Tweetcamp was an opportunity to experiment with different ways of stimulating discussion and self-organising a very large group (about 150 people or so).

Amy Sample Ward has challenged the team to build on this start at bridging on-line and off-line communities in her thoughtful post. The conversations and activities were very varied. I met someone I knew by swapping a toilet seat for a wonderful water spray – you had to be there. You’ll also hear Ray mentioned in the video. He is a poet and ran a poetry workshop. Inevitably he was ‘dragged’ on to Twitter, where you can now find him as @TheEducatedfool. He was there as part of the BBC poetry initiative, which came up with an innovative live idea for the event, linking Tweetcamp to Glastonbury via Twitter. People tweeted short poems from the event, which were displayed live over there. I told you it wasn’t your usual barcamp!

As well as a wonderful lunch, and Muesli, from sponsors Mymuesli, Addlestones provided a wonderful end to the day with their cider. A big thank you to all of the sponsors. The day wasn’t about the food though, it was about the conversations, which covered topics as diverse as children’s use of the Internet to internal business communications, and a range of  other topics between.

There are lots of photos from the day up on Flickr, including these by Adam Tinworth and some from Chris Heuer (who recently ebayed himself) as well as a few I took:

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The JetBlue University, within the US Airline, picked up social media and ran with it as a business tool.

Notice how they allowed the structure to ‘evolve’ – social media allows “bottom up” development, which usually leads to a better fit with the needs of people within the business. Things like structures of tagging and information (ontologies) are very hard to get right with a top down approach.

IBM is often cited for their very effective use of social media both within the organisation and outside of it. In this short clip, IBM’s  Jon Iwata, SVP of Marketing and Communication, talks about  ”letting go” of traditional views of communication controls. He also points out that social media doesn’t create new problems, it simply highlights existing ones:

Best Buy might not be a name that springs to mind when it comes to social media, but the retailer has embraced the tools in all sorts of different areas within the business. This clip talks about “The Company as a Wiki” – an evolving on-line collaboration space:

If you haven’t already, then check out the “Collaboration in action” white paper from Redcatco partner theblueballroom, which talks about the different tools.

While there is no ‘template’ for deploying social media inside of a business, there are generally three clear phases:

Broadcast

Most businesses have built effective internal communications mechanisms that borrow from the broadcast world, from direct email and internal magazines to internal TV channels. These get the message out, but usually don’t provide a means to get meaningful feedback, or to gather and spread knowledge from the edges of the organisation.

Interactive

From “CEO Blogs” to interactive sites, providing the ability to comment on, or even just rate, communications gives a way for employees to start to interact. The interaction is very different from email, since it is visible across the organisation – rather than just between one or two employees. This phase gets people used to communicating “in public” – this is a much bigger cultural change than it sounds, and is the first step to less structured and less formal communication in the digital domain.

Social

In the final phase, communication moves from top-down with feedback, to a peer-to-peer model. All employees become content producers, and knowledge is shared in a very distributed manner. Social ties within the organisation become stronger, and become the predominant force for moderating behaviours and communication.

The video clips give some ideas of what can be achieved, and the nature of the journey. Ultimately, each business will follow a different path, and the adoption of social technology needs to be tightly aligned to existing business goals. It isn’t about the tools, it is about communication within the business, and building stronger relationships that enable effecive collaboration and sharing – that’s where the competitive advantage comes from.

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Who needs telephones? We’ve got Twitter! Phone calls are all good and well, but by the time you’ve looked up the number, dialled it, listened to the ring tone and got through to the person you are trying to reach – or left the inevitable recorded message – you could have made a cup of coffee or had your next million dollar idea. Besides, it is so last-century… There must be a better way to make a restaurant booking.

Twitter might not replace the telephone any time soon, but for lots of things it can be a faster way to communicate. There are times when it is better to have a real time conversation. Hearing someone’s tone of voice, and seeing their face, helps to clarify potential misunderstandings straight away, providing a much better understanding of how the other person is really reacting. There is an emotional richness to a two way conversation which isn’t there in a short piece of text. If you have got into an exchange of more than 3 messages, then it is probably  time to pick up the phone – it will be more efficient in the long run.

However, sometimes the message is straight forward, unambiguous and not emotionally loaded. Twitter is great for those sorts of things, very fast and efficient: ”Can I have a table for two at 8pm tonight?”.  Less than 140 characters later… I had a dinner reservation.

I booked a table at the Landings Restaurant in Farnborough (@landingsrestaur). The outbound marketing potential of Twitter is constantly pushed, making it easy for forget that it is an inbound communication mechanism too. Popping up a window, typing a user name and message is much faster than scouring through a phone directory (electronic or otherwise) and making a call, so why wouldn’t someone want to communicate with a business that way?

I’m not sure if it is a UK first, it might well be, but I’m sure it won’t be the last such exchange. Businesses need to communicate on their customer’s terms. Twitter is my communications dashboard, and by being there the Landings Restaurant won my business on Friday night. More than that, I found them via my social network too (thank you @andypiper for the tip off – I saw your tweet and followed the restaurant as a result).

Landings Restaurant aren’t alone on twitter of course, there are tweeting bakeries, coffee shops and bridges already, but taking a booking via Twitter is a neat trick. As a business, you need to meet your customers where they are – don’t just wait around expecting them to come to you. If you do, you’ll find that your competitors may have got to them first.

Organisations need to be accessible, there is a big jump from a cold, corporate web page to a person to person conversation. Twitter provides a nice stepping stone in between the two.

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After being caught calling myself a social media expert during the BBC Radio 5 Live Pods and Blogs program this morning, I’d better explain what I’ve been up to. Having stumbled into digital communication in the 80′s, I was always captivated by the ability of technology to change things. In the 90′s I was able to play a part in building intranets that really did change how businesses operated, from car manufacturers like Renault and Volvo, to big banks in Asia and the US.

Something happened along the way, and I think that something may well have been email. Business went from information islands to an open sea of information. Then the sea turned to jets of water. Intranet’s dried up, as communication went from the intranet to email. The open sea became a mass of droplets, as staff retreated to their solitary inboxes, and closed point-to-point emails.

With intranets came extranets, and the idea of things being “inside” the firewall and “outside” the firewall. Deep inside the IT bunker phrases like “demilitarised zone” started to echo around. Information security thinking crept into marketing, and PR, as organisations started to talk about “controlling” and “timing” information flows.

Planning is all well and good, and control has its place, but businesses are ultimately about doing things, and doing them now. Outside of the corporate walls, people are sharing information like never before. News flows in real-time, from Iranian cyber war to Surrey swine flu. Its spread follows people’s social networks more closely than it follows fibre optics. It is granular, relevant and real-time. The corporate world has fallen behind the consumer world, but now it is time to catch up.

Deploying social technology inside of a business opens up the communications channels again. During deployments in recent years, I keep seeing that unless the external communication and internal communication are addressed at a strategic level, many of the benefits of an efficient, collaborative work style is lost. There’s certainly still a benefit, but it’s like driving with the hand brake on.

I’ve been searching for people with the same sense, and with the vision and skills to drive with the hand brake off. Having a “social media strategy” is all very well, but it often results in “bolt on” activity, with little return, and little benefit towards the strategic direction of the business. “Using social media strategically” is something different. Picking points of engagement, within the company’s strategic operations, when the tools will provide the best return. Social media is more than “one” thing. It is multifaceted and multi-skilled. It links internal and external, bringing the “publics” together, in a world were “personal” and “business” are increasingly blurred.

Given that the tools are about collaboration, it makes sense that collaboration should be the tool to help people get to grips with them. Imagine combining people-centric technology skills with those of an award-winning internal communications agency and a specialist PR and digital media agency. I have been imagining it for a while, and I have to say that the reality is even more exciting than I thought it would be. Two names to remember, and that you will hear along side redcatco:

thebluedoor

theblueballroom

ANNOUNCING: Consultancies collaborate to deliver businesses unique Web 2.0 and social media solutions for internal and external communications.

With collaboration, innovation and stakeholder engagement high on the business agenda, there is an increasing sense of urgency for businesses to embrace the opportunities offered by Web 2.0 and social media tools. One-third of executives recognise the importance of social networking by ensuring it is part of their business and operations strategy1. Yet a key block for business leaders and managers is a lack of strategic knowledge to analyse the business case for Web 2.0 and, moreover, ensure that the right social media tools are chosen to deliver on a company’s communications objectives.

1. Source: Deloitte ‘2009 Ethics & Workplace Survey’ conducted by Opinion Research Corporation 19/5/09

Looking for some social media action? Together, our three companies are enabling collaboration in action right now. Call or  e-mail to get the full story, we are taking our strategic workshop offering out to businesses that really want to reap the benefits of using social media. I’ll be sharing what we learn together here.

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Are you happy in your job? Do you know what is expected of you in your role? If you answered yes to both, you are in a privileged minority. According to John H. Fleming, Chief Scientist at Gallup Consulting, 43% of employees in the UK are not engaged at work, while 17% are actively disengaged – and over a third of employees are unsure what their job actually is.

The figures come from a 2006-2008 survey discussed during Melcrum’s 5th anual conference on employee engagement. Whilst social media wasn’t the focus of the event, it came up many times as a way to change company culture. “Collaboration in action” – a white paper on social media inside of organisations – was launched by theblueballroom at the event, more on that shortly.

In working with businesses in transformation, what becomes apparent are the strong links between the success of a business, and how staff and customers feel about it. The interactions between the three factors are far from intuitive, but social media is becoming the tool of choice for improving all three.

Although most of what is written about social media and social networking platforms is focused on external marketing activities these days, the most transformative uses are in internal communications. So, when the folks at theblueballroom invited me along the Melcrum Employee Engagement Conference, I grabbed my bag and headed along.

Employee engagement is a much maligned term, and provokes a negative reaction in many. It isn’t a well understood term, and I’ve certainly seen it misused. However I think all agree that how employees feel about the business that they work for is important. Are they bringing their “whole selves” to work, or fighting against the system? It just isn’t something that companies get right often enough.

John Fleming gave an overview of Gallup Consulting’s “HumanSigma(R)” program at the conference. It was originally published in Harvard Business review in July/Aug 2005, and is now a book in it’s own right. As with many Gallup tools, it aims to measure a complex set of dynamics, with a survey generated number. I’m not a great fan of the methodology, but John made some interesting points during his presentation. The employee-customer encounter is fundamentally an emotional one – “people are people first, and employees and customers second.” So it has to be understood that way.

Interactions that have an “emotional” element are increasingly squashed by high-velocity email and broadcast marketing techniques, even inside of the company walls. John argued that interactions should be managed locally – essentially a distributed form of management. Social tools support this working model. He suggested four levels of operation for employees:

• Growth – how can we grow?
• Team work – do I belong?
• Individual contribution – what do I give?
• Basic needs – what do I get?

It is loosely based on Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, but is a helpful framework for building communities. Disengaged employees expose company boards and owners to big financial risks – Choose your favourite horror story from the media. Social networking tools have amplified those risks (as Dominos Pizza disovered), by giving everyone access to a ‘global stage’. Inside of the business, social media can create effective communication channels that let staff feel part of a community, and actively contribute as part of a team. Yet very few businesses have got to grips with social tools, or training staff in using them responsibly.

There are businesses that are embracing the technologies, and embedding them into the business infrastructure to great effect. I’m leading a Social Media Workshop for internal comms on June 24th in Hammersmith, together with Abi Signorelli of Virgin Media. You can read more about the workshop on the Melcrum Blog and here is a Qik video I shot in the bustle of the Virgin Media offices with Abi on Friday:

From blogs to phlogs and wikis, used well, social technology creates open communication channels across a business, breaking down barriers between different organisations, and providing the feedback that leaders need to be effective.

I’m looking forward to being joined by Redcatco collaborator, Debbie Davies, who will be exploring how video can be used in the business context, so I’m sure there will be some clips coming over during and after the event!

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You are a very fortunate individual if you have escaped the torrent of (somewhat spammy) messages from the spy catcher application. It is doing a rather good, and therefore bad, job of turning Twitter into Facebook – or rather the bad old Facebook of a while ago, with the legendary sheep throwing, pirates, vampires and sea of noise generated by that genre of social applications.

Got You! Via Twitter

The success of Spycatcher is a proof point of another unsettling trend: Notice how easily people hand over their username and passwords to a relatively unknown (and potentially untrusted) third party.

There has been a long term problem with twitter third party applications. The first generation of applications required users to enter their username and password on the third party site, where they were stored, so that the 3rd party could get access to the user’s Twitter stream, to do whatever wonderful things it did. It sounds relatively innocuous, but actually it sets a rather bad precedent. It is referred to as an anti-pattern, a commonly bad solution to a problem. It is bad because it teaches people how to be phished.

From Catching Fish to Helping Phishers

Phishers spend their time trying to get users to hand over password details, so that they can gain access to accounts. Twitter has a bad anti-pattern problem, and it knows it, since the Twitter ecosystem trains users to hand over their security details to third parties. To tackle the issue Twitter has added OAuth to the service. It provides a way for third parties to validate users, without storing the username and password. However, this doesn’t solve the whole problem. People are still handing over passwords. So, back to catching those spies…

Increasingly third party Twitter applications are not only logging in to pull down information, but they are actively sending tweets from users accounts (including @ messages and Direct Messages) on behalf of, and in the name of, the user. And why wouldn’t they? If a developer can get away with using a bit of a user’s social capital to promote their application, they probably will. Spycatcher is a particular case in point.

From Bad to Worse

The annoying messages it tweets are one thing, “captured this”, “assassinated that”, they can be blocked. However, over the weekend things took a turn for the worse when I started getting private direct messages from the people I follow asking me to join. Now, either my friends have suddenly all switched to the same writing style, or these were automated DMs. I’ll let you take your pick.

Twitter direct messages are my most trusted communications channel, since only people I have chosen to follow can send me messages (oh that my mobile phone was the same), and the messages generate alerts in near-real-time. So, when people start spamming me via that channel I sit up and take notice. There is another reason too. Because URLs that arrive via that channel are usually from a trusted human, I tend to trust the links. I shouldn’t of course, and neither should you. Combined with anti-patter behaviours, it is all too easy to receive a DM with a link and a “Benjamin, use your Twitter ID to check your security here” – you can see where that heads. If I was being dozy, 5 minutes later all of the people who follow me would be getting the same message. Injecting malware, or carrying out phishing attacks it all too easy. People need to realise that the twitter stream is part of their on-line identity, and to guard security credentials well. It was a little while back that Britney Spears and Barack Obama had their login details compromised.

What to learn?

• Don’t hand over your user name and password unless you are 100% sure where they are going, and what will be done with them.
• Use different passwords for different services. That way any damage should be limited to one service. If your Twitter password is the same as your on-line banking one, fix that quickly!
• Change your passwords every so often. Yes, I’m sounding like the moaning IT guy, but this does make a difference to your security.

I expect to see more and more applications using the social capital of their users to promote them – that has been the model on Facebook, and now it’s coming to Twitter. As for Spymaster, I’m not sure if it should be called spam master rather than spymaster (if you want to play please turn off the notifications I hate having to unfollow people). I’m surprised their hasn’t been a bigger backlash against it.

Perhaps it is a sign of the shifting user. We have reached the “sheep throwing” phase of the social networking platfrom life cycle. It’ll take it as a sign of Twitter entering adolesence already.

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As early users posted updates, they sometimes wanted to indicate that a message was directed at a specific user, or a reply to one of another user’s updates. The idea of @username was quickly adopted as the way of doing that. The @ notation has spread to other social media too – I’ve seen @name in blog comments, forums and even emails. Eventually the concept was incorporated into the Twitter system as a feature, and almost every Twitter client has an “@replies” column or a “reply” button.

Recently Twitter changed ‘replies’ to ‘mentions’ – something you can see reflected on the Twitter web interface. For me that was a retrograde step. Replies and mentions are very different, take these two tweets:

@BenjaminEllis I really don’t think that is the best answer.

Just saw @BenjaminEllis and others on BBC News today.

You can find either of them with a Twitter search, but they are semantically quite different, to my mind at least. I’m interested in the second, but probably need to respond to the first.

Yesterday Twitter went a stage further and removed a key piece of the reply functionality, which has caused an outrage on Twitter (see #fixreplies).

You would generally reply to other people, and it is tempting to think of @replies as just one type of message. They aren’t, and not just because of the mentions versus replies issue. If you take the perspective of someone who is following you, or that you follow, there are two big categories of @ reply:

• Replies to them.
• Replies to others.

Obviously you are going to be interested in replies to you – you’re on Twitter for the conversation, right? However the case of replies to others is a little more complicated, and understanding why reveals one of the most powerful aspects of Twitter.

If you think of your social graph on twitter (the ‘star’ of people that you follow, and the ‘star’ of people that follow you), together with each of those people’s graphs, you’ll see something startling in the way that conversations happen on Twitter. No-one (unless they follow and are followed by exactly the same people) sees the same conversation. Pardon the crude diagram, but hopefully it helps. Think about the two users at the middle of the stars, and also the two solid dots and circles on the edge for a minute:

Everyone on Twitter sees different things, and conversations swing from people to people. It is a very unique dynamic, and one not really replicated elsewhere. Now, back to @replies. Twitter has traditionally subdivided @replies to others into two types: replies to people that you follow, and @ replies to people that you aren’t following. The reason why becomes apparent when you think about the partially-overlapping social graph each person has (that diagram above).

While it is reasonably obvious that you would want to see @replies to yourself (although you might want to see those in your timeline, or see them seperately), what to do with the others isn’t so obvious.

One argument is that you would want to see all the @ replies of the people you are following. They are part of that person’s conversation after all. This option provides a way to discover other people that you might be interested in following, or finding mutual friends that you didn’t know were on twitter. I’ve had the benefit of both of those experiences, and for me it is part of what makes Twitter a great tool: serendipity is built in.

A second argument is that seeing all of the @replies of the people you follow is going to be far too ‘noisy’ and that the only ones that are meaningful are the @ replies to people that you also follow. This is a nice halfway house, in that you can still follow conversations between your friends (or rather between the different people that you follow), but there are far fewer tweets for you to read, as you don’t get the @replies to others. The downside? Sometimes you only see half of the conversation.

In actuality, you often only see half the conversation anyway. If someone you aren’t following @replies someone that you are following, you wouldn’t normally see that tweet. According to the post on the Twitter Blog the issue of one-sided conversation fragments was their reason for removing a very useful option in Twitter: The @ replies options: Until today, Twitter allowed you to choose which argument you accepted. Via an options setting you could:

1. See all @replies (ie @replies to you and all @replies sent by people you follow).
2. See @replies to people that you are following (the second argument above).
3. See only @replies to yourself.

This allowed a great deal of flexibility, and meant that if you were following a small number of people, you could choose to see all @replies and so gradually find new people to follow. If it all got too noisy, then you could limit what you saw down to the people that you followed, and just join in those conversations. If even that was too much, you could stick to just replies to yourself. A piece of design brilliance – leave the decision in the hands of the user. I’ll come back to that in a minute.

There is a school of thought that @replies are really just a matter between the two users involved, and that allowing people to butt into conversations is somehow wrong. From my perspective I really don’t agree with that.  I quite enjoy people butting in from time to time. If the message is that private, then use a Direct Message (“D ” – although with care, one slip of the keyboard by you or the other person and that message is in the public timeline).

The issue of user choice is a tricky one for any product manager or a service designer. If you require users to make too many choices, your offering rapidly becomes hard to use, even confusing. If the choices require expertise that isn’t available to the new user, it is easy for them to get the wrong end of the stick and end up with a poor user experience.

I don’t think the @replies option has been well understood, neither have @replies in general, but I also don’t believe that is a reason to remove it. A simpler tactic (that probably wouldn’t have caused the same level of outrage in the Twitter community) would have been to change the default setting for the @replies option. It’s a neat compromise, since the ‘power users’ can still get to the setting, but those less interested in the technicalities can simply ignore it.

@EV (Twitter CEO) tweeted to say they will reconsider. Hopefully here ends the lesson, for us all. It is interesting to see a user community in action, but may also be an example of where ‘democracy’ and crowd sourcing does and doesn’t fit in with product design. I’ll come back to that one.

He’s a Qik video from a little while ago which explains more, and also shows the options that have been removed:

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Artefacts - things left behind by ancient civilisations. Tangible items that remain, things that you can see and hold, that give a sense of history.

“Create valuable artefacts.”

I’m not sure where the phrase originated, but it is one that has stuck with me for many years. It might have come from a conversation with a developer, in talking about coding methodologies, but the application goes far beyond programming. When you have a discussion, write some code, or hold an event: create valuable artefacts.

Artefacts aren’t just markers, like Stonehenge, pictured above. Valuable artefacts enable others to benefit from your thinking, and build on it. It took three phases and hundreds of people, over hundreds of years, to create Stonehenge. Conversations are transitory and private, confined to a moment in time and a small group of people, but artefacts are persistent and discoverable.

When artefacts express knowledge, it can be transferred to others. For me, books are still the ultimate knowledge artefact. There is something Information, organised, presented and committed on to organic matter.

Books still hold a special place in our society, even in this age of social media and user generated content. Perhaps it is because there is still a high barrier to creating a book. It is traditionally a long process, costly in both time and money, to get something in to print. Or perhaps it is because the format is associated with deep memories, right back to our childhood days. Either way, there is something unique about a book.

Thanks to Blurb, and the London Underground blog, I had the opportunity to publish my own book. For those that don’t know me, I have had lots of articles published (and I’m open to commissions!). I have contributed chapters to books, too. However, the experience of producing my own book was something quite different. Simultaneously daunting and exciting.

Technically, the process was straight forward. Download and install the Blurb software, Mac or PC, then drop in the images and text, and choose a layout. Tweak as necessary, and submit to publish. The difference was the emotional aspect of the production. Owning the creative process from start to finish. Even though my idea was a simple one – make use of my photography, and posts from this blog – it was still a daunting prospect putting it together.

Then, just a couple of weeks later, an unexpected birthday present arrived at the door step (purely by coincidence of timing)…

A book, beautifully bound, with 40 pages of pictures and words, on premium paper. In my hands, or actually in Caalie’s hands in the picture. It was a strange experience, holding a physical object, based on some of the digital media I have produced over the last few years. Then watching others thumb through it too. I don’t normally get to see people digesting my work.

It’s impact is hard to put in words, but it has spawned lots of ideas. I will publish a public book later in the year, since enough people have asked about buying copies of this one, but the technology has other applications too. Blurb opens the option of publishing a book to the masses.

Will everyone become an author? I’m not sure they will. Even if blogging is building the skills for some, not everyone is comfortable with writing ‘in public’ – a fact I’m very aware of when deploying wikis or helping businesses to blog.

One of the things about traditional book publishing is that it is a process – for better or for worse. Pitching an idea, writing a draft, editing and a whole set of other activities. It is a process, and a creative one at that. Having the right process for creating artefacts improves their quality, although care has to be taken not to stifle that creativity.

Much of the work in and around technology companies is a creative process, but people are not always aware of that. Ask staff if they are creative, and they will generally say they aren’t. It’s fun when you are able to evidence that they actually are.

Blurb enables the publication of short-form works, right down to 40 pages or even less, with mixtures of wonderfully printed pictures and words. I’m going to hunt out an opportunity to use Blurb to create a book as a project artefact. Something drawn from the materials of a project team – photos, wiki pages and blog posts – and given to each team member. Something to keep at their desk as a record of what they achieved.

That’s another thing with creating valuable artefacts, they provide physical evidence of your hard labour. Something that is increasingly rare in the information age.

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Part I – A Digital Dawn

I crawled out of bed in the early hours for an 8am meeting in London, at NESTA’s offices. Lord Carter, Neil Berkett (CEO Virgin Media), Jonathan Kestenbaum (CEO, NESTA) and Peter Bazalgette (Media Expert) discussed the the interim Digital Britain report. Although sometimes refered to as the ”Carter Report”, it was pointed out that this is a report from government, not to government. Digital Britain is its correct title – A fact that makes it all the more important for people to provide their responses.

That title also means everyone expects something (different) from it. A fact that has drawn the report much criticism. The infrastructure providers are a broad community. The content providers are an ever bigger one. Then there are the users, which cover the bulk of the population. One of those “you can’t please all of the people…” situations.

Lord Carter at NESTA - by Benjamin Ellis

New Uses and New Skills

The report cuts across two industries familiar to me: Telecommunications and the Digital Media space. Although mature in some ways, they are also just at the beginning of a new era. Universal broadband, including mobile, and user generated/acquired content are transforming the landscape.

The report discusses both the “pipes and poetry,” as Lord carter put it during his speech. The country’s communications infrastructure (pipes) and the content delivered across it (poetry) are a large industry, especially in light of the rapidly contracting financial industry that used to fuel UK Plc.

The report also talks about digital inclusion; ensuring that people have the skills needed to use this ‘digital’ world proficiently. You can watch a recording of the video stream from the morning on NESTA’s site. 

The report doesn’t go into the new generation of applications that are enabling user participation in on-line communities. For me, that is an obvious critical third area. The most exciting thing I heard was Lord Carter suggesting there should be a separate report into Digital Government and participation. There is huge opportunity to innovate in that space. Providing open APIs to government data and turning the new generation of Web 2.0 application developers loose on it. It is also worth checking out the Power of Information Task Force Report too (seeTom Watson’s blog post).

The Digital Britain report itself deserves more explanation than will fit into this post, so I will write a summary over on BusinessTechFeed, since it best lives there. 

Digital Lunch

Back to the day. The middle consisted of some intense and stimulating face to face conversations with Nico Macdonald, Farhan and Alan Patrick / @freecloud, followed by Lunch with Lloyd Davis and Alan. It was a very timely introduction to “Beyond the Crisis: Debating the role of innovation“, worth checking out for the resources section, even if you can’t make that event itself. See, I do practice what I blog (One Thing To Get Through Tough Times)!

2. Being Amplified

From Lunch table to night club, as Tiger Tiger provided the  afternoon venue for Amplified 09 London. For some it was a little distracting to be working in a night club, but the “booths and tables” arrangement served the open spaces meeting style well.

Toby Moores opened and closed, together with a few words of feedback from myself, Steve Lawson and Eileen Brown at the end of the event (see Eileen’s WordPress post or TechNet). Predictably, I joined the discussions on Broadband Britain.

From behind my screen - Amplified 09 - by Benjamin Ellis

Much of the conversation orbited around the central chicken and egg scenario: if you don’t have universal broadband, there isn’t a platform for content and applications. If there aren’t content and applications, there isn’t a driver for universal broadband. There is the additional layer as well: If users don’t have the skills (or confidence) to make use of the applications, the pipes and the poetry become irrelevant.

It makes for a Gordian Knot that is not easily solved. Joanne Jacobs was keen for action, as were others. I think it is in the area of transferring skills that the Amplified community can help most in building digital britain.

3. Down to (Digital) Business

The day left me with lots of takeaways, although more for business than for Britain. To take advantage of digital tools, a business needs:

• The right Infrastructure – pipes must reach all of the participants, all of the time. Bandwidth and universal access are both important.
• Content and Platforms to distribute and discover knowledge – staff need to be both producers, ‘capturers’ and consumers of content.
• Proficiency – The right tools with the wrong skills won’t deliver results. The new skills are best learnt from modelling and practice, not from books and slides. Build learning experiences.

Just as there are different meeting styles, with their different strengths and weaknesses – from the formal ‘talks and three-questions-at-a-time’ at NESTA, through the open spaces style of Amplified, to casual lunch discussions – there are different digital tools too. Wikis, Blogs, email and IM each have their places in supporting business conversations, community and marketing.

Mixing and matching formats are the key to driving innovation, to identify challenges, and then to crack them. Even that Gordian knot can be hit and split, given the right people with access to sufficient information.

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I don’t mean the meetup.com service. I mean meet up for a coffee. Meet up for a lunch. Meet up for a drink. “Benjamin!” you say, “that’s a bit frivolous. Shouldn’t we be working harder, rather than out socialising?” But think about it. Business demand is down in many sectors. That means getting smarter about finding new customers and keeping existing ones. It means ensuring you have a good network in place, should things take a turn for the worse.  It is about scarcity, not capacity. The long-term winners will be those with that extra insight that enables them to make smart decisions and avoid mistakes. It won’t be the ones running 10% faster in the wrong direction. 

Keep on Meeting

Discussions are great for a business, especially in tough times. Identity your most important customers and meet up with them. Not email. Not a phone call. Arrange to meet for that coffee or drink. At a personal level, think about your most valued friends. Book in some time with them, just to meet up and chat. Find out how they are doing. It’s about protecting valuable relationships, as well as sharing issues and insights.

I’m a massive advocate of social media and technology-mediated communication. I blog, tweet and video my way through the day. Often I’m teaching others to do the same, or I’m building blogs and community sites, networks and communication systems. I love the stuff. However, I value face to face communication more. There are somethings that only face to face communication will provide, and they are things that we need right now.

Something is Missing

When you talk to someone, rather that type to them, you hear a sea of additional information. Technically, it’s called prosody. The inflection, rhythm and tone of their voice change, from “yes, things are ok” to “yes, things are ok”. Did you spot the difference? Of course not. There wasn’t any. But if you heard me say them, you’d be able to tell if business was turning good, or if business was turning bad. Not because I was trying to mislead you by what I was saying, but because words may tell you where things are, but emotions tell you where things are heading. You don’t need to consciously think about interpreting the information coded in the prosody of someone’s speech. You’ve been learning to do it every day since you started listening. It happens unconsciously, but only when you talk.

When you see someone, you  see their body language. Their posture and movements tell you even more about what they are thinking and feeling. Are they looking at you, or gazing away? Are they fidgety or still? If you can’t see the person, you loose that information. I’m not talking about advanced body language reading skills, just understanding “how is my relationship?” or “am I spending enough time with them?”

And That’s Not All

I haven’t got to the most important reason for meeting up face to face. Non-verbal communication is great, but there is something else that only happens when you physically go somewhere to meet up. Chance conversations. When I was working in Asian cultures, it took me a while to realise the important conversations were the ones that happened when the formal ones were over. Actually it’s no different anywhere in the world.

While email and phone might be informal compared to the written letters of old, they still aren’t as informal as we like to think they are. We are trained to be efficient on the phone, and conversations are stilted, even in video conferences with the very latest high definition equipment. Our brain knows that valuable bits of communication are missing, and it longs to have the gaps filled in. A conversation, in a relaxed atmosphere, is something unique. We crave it, but too often we deny ourselves the opportunity for it. In difficult times, it is the only way to figure out what is going on. It is the only way to build strong relationships that will protect you and your business. It is the only thing that provides the confidence to get on and get things done. It also surfaces the extra nuggets of information that enable the entrepreneur to succeed.  Trust your instincts on this one.

Balancing Online and Offline

There was a peace in the Mail Online today - How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer. Ordinarily it isn’t something I would rise to citing, but it has been interesting to see the reaction on-line. Dr Aric Sigman, quoted in the article, probably hasn’t made any friends in the on-line world, but I doubt he is bothered about that. Don’t worry, he has written about how TV is killing us too. In case the comments people have added to the piece don’t provide enough entertainment for, you, check out the spoof “Daily Mail says Postal System Causes Cancer“ by the incorrigible Tom Morris. Needless to say, neither represents a systematic research piece!

I’m definitely not reducing the importance or the power of digital communication. The mass media makes much of ‘the battle’ between online (social media and social networking) and offline. While they might appear to be warring for our time – or budget in the case of business – in a healthy set up, they are complementary to each other.

As a business, for almost everything except on-line retail, you want to end up face to face with potential customers. You want potential customers and your sales channel to meet and transact business. For personal relationships, eventually you want to push past the technology and meet the people “in real life”. Social media scales your ability to reach out to new contacts, and preserve existing ones.

One Thing Leads to Another

Vibrant on-line communities lead to face-to-face meet ups. It is almost inevitable, and has been since the earliest digital communications. In the same way, online tools act as a sustaining mechansim for existing relationships, when distance or time limit contact. The best way to build an on-line community? Get people meeting face to face. Want to preserve a time-scarce or geographically dispersed community? Use on-line tools. One of the reasons that social media is such an effective tool for growing business, or your personal social network, is that it acts as an efficient funnel between “the big wide world” of contacts and our intimate circle of relationships. Which takes me back to where I started…

Meet Up

Now is the time to invest time into important relationships. Check in with your most important customers. Look up your friends. How are they doing? Is there anything that you can be doing to support them? “Chill out” away from the day to day hype and get a proper read on what is happening.

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It started with a conversation, and is ending in hundreds of events around the world. Tonight I am on BBC ONE talking about Twitter, and hopefully not sounding too much like a geek. I was on the evening news talking about Twitter: Twittering On BBC. People in the UK and all around the world have dedicated much of their daylight time (and midnight oil) into organising what must be one of the largest on-line-to-off-line charity events in recent history. Kudos to Amanda Rose, and to all those who made Twestivals happen around the world.  I took a couple of pictures and answered some questions.

Twestival to aims to raise money and awareness for charity: water. It may net more than £1 million pounds before today is out, which is quite something for an on-line community of a tool that wasn’t even heard of a year ago. This is mass collaboration at work, CauseWired style. Thousands of people, amplified by technology, making a difference. A very exciting day. Well done people – with help from Twitter (which just closed its own $35 million round of funding).

As I mentioned in the BBC interview, one of the things I love about twitter is the diversity of the community, “Benjamin Ellis and Grannies.” If you want to read a touching post on that subject, do read Christian Pain’s post (aka @documentally): “My Gran is on Twitter“.

I headed out of London, over to Reading, to join the crowd there and meet some new faces:

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In his post JP shares some thoughts about systems for decision making. The ideas are interesting (and have been debated in other contexts). It is worth remembering that government’s influence on our lives goes far beyond spending from the state wallet. Government sets policy and makes laws too. Thinking about recent anti-terror and surveillance legislation, along with proposals in the Digital Britain report, arguably, policy and law affect our lives the most.

It is possible to build an on-line voting system to provide access to every policy decision, but as Clay noted in his talk, the results aren’t always the utopian ideal we would hope for. Controlling policy directly may not be a good thing. It becomes easy for a well organised minority to ‘out-influence’ a quieter, less galvanised majority. To avoid that problem would require compulsory voting, but do you want people forced to vote on issues they don’t care about or that don’t affect them? 

The same issues exist for social decision making tools used in an organisational context. While “Voting” has become popular for making some decisions, generally we don’t run companies as democracies. Why not? Because we (or more specifically the business owners) prize expert decision making. Some of the larger companies I have worked with do have town hall meetings. These are loose approximations to the early Greek ideas of democracy, soliciting feedback and dialogue, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Businesses are, at least notionally, meritocracies. People gain authority based on their ability to make good decisions and to use authority well.

Several times in his talk, Shirky made the point that the democratic franchise grew up based on the ideal of one person one vote – actually one man one vote, but that’s another issue. Democracy requires a strong grip on identity. I must be sure of who you are before you vote, in order to enforce one person one vote. However, the voter’s opinion itself is afforded anonymity. I know who you are, but not how you voted. In the UK, more so than in US culture, most people’s voting intention is an intensely private matter, expressed in an intensely private ballot. 

The Internet grew up as a very different type of franchise. Via NFSnet and FIDOnet (and communities like The Well) anonymity was accidentally implicit, if not deliberately and explicitly so. The systems had no way of knowing who someone was, in the sense that we would understand identity management. People frequently used synonyms, and even when they used a ‘real name’, verifying they were actually that person was a non-trivial exercise. As a side note, Twitter has been experiencing the same fun and games recently, with people grabbing Twitter accounts and masquerading as celebrities (from Tony Benn to the Dalai Lama).

Back to votes and opinions for a moment. In the on-line world we often know a lot about what someone thinks. There is anonymity of identity, but not of opinion. A mirror to the democratic franchise. Interestingly, from my own work with Wikis and from other academic studies, I have noticed that sites where people can post completely anonymously get significantly more contributions that those that don’t.

So, how can we make companies more democratic, and how can we make government more participative, in the social media sense? The answers come not from technology, but from understanding the nature of democracy itself. The art of an effective democratic system is to defend factions from each other. Tony Benn, articulates it well in this clip from “Big Ideas That Changed The World”, you might not agree with his views, but his argument is an informative one, if you are new to the concepts:

Incidentally, the video is also a good counter to Shirky’s statement that Democracy started in the UK with the Magna Carta, signed just up the road from where I am sitting right now now, in a a field in Runnymede. Democracy has evolved mechanisms to deal with working at scale. I can exchange a little information with a lot of people, or a lot of information with a few people. Information exchange doesn’t scale to both ends at once. Democracy tackles that problem by the use of elected, professional representatives as intermediaries. A vote is a small piece of information from a lot of people. A consultation process is a lot of information exchanged within a smaller group of people. Familiar mechanisms that tackle the problem.

What came before democracy was tribalism, which JP’s post alludes to with the description of the open source community. Projects are often run by a ‘tribal leader’ and rings of followers creating a social structure supporting them (see Dunbar and other anthropological studies). That structure does not work with anonymity of opinions. Visibility of allegiances is required to allow the structure to sustain itself.

Here is an apparent paradox: Anonymity promotes extremes of views, by taking away the moderating effect of social influence. We are compliant creatures by nature, and social pressure pushes us towards moderate, or normative, views. We adapt our views, based on our perception of other people’s views. It is a socially useful behaviour, since it makes it easier to form coherent groups. Johnnie Moore and Mark Earls, author of Herd, gave some great demonstrations of this during their session on social influence at NESTA yesterday, and Mark’s book is probably a good place to study it more.

In designing social decision making systems, one must take account of identity, anonymity and accountability. Systems must also balance the desire to have everyone participate, with the need for informed expert opinion. During the NESTA session, Johnnie Moore made an astute observation about organisational design: business design is about balance the need for efficiency, and the desire for full participation.

These are all thorny issues. In a representational democracy we vote for someone we believe is able to represent us. At least we should. In the workplace this is expressed in the form employee councils and so on. Can we place these things with social software? An old IT/programming adage springs to mind: Don’t mess with something unless you understand why it was that way in the first place. We need to apply new technology, with the benefit of understanding old ideas. Yet another thing to add to the list of important, but non-trivial tasks.

There are usually trade-offs and compromises to be made. No system is perfect. However, experience shows, from systems to products, that it doesn’t take perfection to win. In the early days of Cisco Systems, a group of consulting engineers got in to terrible trouble for having a T-shirt printed that said “Cisco – We suck less”. The positioning goes a little against the grain of modern marketing techniques, but it rings true. As Darwin would have put it, survival of the ones that are the best (least bad) fit for their environment.

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