ROI questions?

If you are riddled with repeated conversations about the value and possibilities that exist through participation on the social web, or if you get the occasional ‘what’s the ROI?’ query, this article may help you to enhance your current response.  So much of the progress delivered through these efforts remains unseen, but Barak Obama and team entered the space and took advantage brilliantly.  An impressive effort IMO.

Could you work without email?

IBM has a very interesting employee named Luis Suarez who has spent the better part of the last year attempting to eliminate work email from his daily routine.  How does he do it?  By leaning heavily on social platforms and their capabilities.  Why does he do it?  This YouTube video on ‘Thinking Outside the Inbox’ explains…

Global Neighborhoods interview

I can’t believe I forgot to mention a recent interview with me published by Shel Israel on his Global Neighborhoods blog.  Check it out here and please, leave a comment if you are so inclined.  I think it represents a nice update on the current IBM internal social computing state of affairs.

Keeping in touch

Spoke to a group of Marist College students today.  PRSA members to be specific.  Working with Adam Christensen, we presented some of the ‘why we do it’ and ‘lessons learned’ type information around IBM and social computing prior to opening up the discussion to everyone attending. 

Adam had the great idea to have the group talk about how they find information online about companies, what resonates, what they like to find, what they do with it.  We got on the topic of recruiting and job hunting and the students came up with some interesting points that support quite a bit of what our team here at IBM does. 

Top response from the group in regard to key influencers was ‘word of mouth’ or looking for information from ‘people like me.’  We see this opinion quite a bit nowadays, and although some big business folks I speak with still don’t believe or understand this, the students rely on this form of information gathering quite heavily.  They prefer friends and family over online strangers, but admitted that the strangers did have impact if there was perceived common interest and beliefs/culture.

Second most important influencer…  Google search results.  Many of us may overlook this, but it is worth paying attention to.  Overlooking a major brand representation on Google, what comes back when folks ‘Google’ you? 

In regard to recruiting specifically, the students expressed desire in being able to find respective recruiters online and finding out a little bit about them prior to connecting on the phone or in person. I find this fascinating.  They look on Facebook for them, they Google them.  They do this as well for potential bosses and etc.  What do they want to do when they find you online?  They don’t want to get an email address or phone number or to start IMing…  they want to KNOW a little bit about you.  Pictures, interests, connections, to get a feel for you, even if it is a limited view.

All in all a very interesting session.  I’d like to thank the Marist PRSA for the invitation.  I think we all learned a few things today.

Ragan article on IBM Podcasting

Ragan have run an article on IBM’s podcasting initiative, and the platform that supports it.  Check it out!

You know how to talk, but do you know how to listen?

Let’s face it, the average communications professional knows how to talk.  Through press releases, internal blast emails, intranet articles, and through things like traditional marketing and publications.  This is what many of us learned in school, spent years practicing and putting into action in the corporate world.  This is what we all had become used to until folks started talking back to us. 

The game has changed across the board for those of us responsible for social computing initiatives.  Sure, all of the above efforts still exist and have their place, but now there is more to add to the plate.  Who’s responsibility is it now to listen?  Simple answer?  All of us.

Now, when you put out a press release, odds are someone is talking about it on a blog somewhere on the www. Put out an internal blast email and someone is blogging about it on your intranet (assuming they  are fully versed in your social computing guidelines).  Write an intranet article and (hopefully) your stakeholders are commenting, discussing, debating, working together in raising awareness and strategizing toward the future.  Post marketing materials on YouTube or www and the public will surely comment.  You get my point…

Do we all know how to listen to what our stakeholders are saying?  Are you tempted to delete bad YouTube comments?  Is this wise to do?  Are you unsure about how to engage and react to criticism and constructive discourse?  Do you even realize this is sometimes all your stakeholders want/need to feel confident about your brand – some respect and intelligent discourse?  Does your organizational culture support and enable this kind of work? 

It should.

Sun Micro posts updated social guidelines

Some days after IBM released our Social Computing Guidelines, Sun Micro has done the same.  They too have moved from ‘policy’ to ‘guidelines.’  Do I sense a trend here in the world of social computing practices?  Yes.  Is this something your organization should be considering?  Yes. This goes beyond affirming your culture and leadership to conveying best practices for effective communications.  I suggest you give both a good read.     

IBM Social Computing Guidelines

Three years after we released our Blogging Guidelines, and once again created through IBM employee blog and wiki collaboration, the new IBM Social Computing Guidelines have just been published.  As participation in social platforms has grown by IBMers, both inside the company and out, it became clear that having disconnected Blogging Guidelines, Podcasting Guidelines, Wiki Guidelines etc. was no longer an effective way to share best practices.  These all needed to be pulled together into one document covering all of the current, and hopefully some future, platform publishing practices.  Self publishing is simply that, self publishing.  It made sense to consolidate.

This was a fantastic collaborative effort and the result is, in my mind, a reflection of some forward thinking. IBMers are on Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, and are on a wide variety of internal tools as well, publishing at rapid pace.  Having a clear and understandable set of guidelines will only help us all to understand this new freedom as we connect with the world.  My thanks to all involved in the creation of this new document.