MAD Perspectives Blog

I was recently in a meeting with a client when the marketing manager stated that all social media updates are reviewed by her or her team before being posted externally. After a bit of probing, I came to understand that her concern was about maintaining the company brand and the unintentional sharing of intellectual property. These are fair concerns, but they raised alarms for me. 

To be clear, my engagement with this client is not specific to social media.  They have hired an agency to help them with their efforts.  My concern is that with too much control, their social media communications will be flat and uninspired. Regardless of who helps them develop their social media plan, they will need to think about the company culture.  Her comments made me realize that this company does not have a culture of empowerment. They have been through many acquisitions and spin-offs, and the culture has been impacted by the continual shifting of leadership and ownership,

Like a symphony orchestra, each individual brings a unique tone to the overall production.
Social media is about being transparent and authentic. If the director, stifles the soloist, the performance seems lacking. The role of the director is to infuse his musicians with and understanding and passion for a particular piece of music. Companies should consider a similar model.  If companies are concerned about their employees sharing inappropriate content, they should inform and educate their employees on the company goals for using social media, provide guidelines for content and ramifications for employees if they show poor judgement.  A company's culture and organizational structure can provide two of the biggest hurdles to social media success.  Take the time to understand your company's culture and the impact on communication style and channel, is critical when initiating your social media efforts. 

Recommendations for addressing these challenges include strategic planning to align the use of social media with clear goals and metrics, employee education, organize a hub and spoke social media team and constantly listen, review and assess.  Everyone I have talked to about social media shares that their experience has been trial and error.  It's ok to make a mistake.  Own it and move forward.  Your goal should be to orchestrate the efforts of your organization in such a way as to let individual personalities emerge and shine.  The content they share will reflect positively on your organization

How are your social media efforts proceeding?  What are your biggest challenges?  I'm interested to learn from you!

What's your perspective? 

Are you afraid that your corporate culture and/or hierarchical organization structure are stifling your attempts at social media?  Then you need to take a step back and consider how to leverage social media in a way that balances culture, organization and open communication.

If your hurdle is related to culture, you must accept that it is not easy to change the corporate culture.  But, you can adapt.  For example, if your culture is one that struggles in the adoption of new technology, you probably haven’t even started using social media yet.  Your first goal should be to gain executive commitment for the use of social networking platforms as an additional communication channel.  You should be clear in your goals for using social media (i.e., thought leadership, market awareness, lead generation, etc.).  You could also find examples of other companies in your industry that are using social media.  You will want to have a clear, measurable strategy that will demonstrate clear benefits for adopting social media.

If your culture is one of privacy and protection of intellectual property, there is still a place for social media.  Employee use of social networking platforms is not an automatic disclosure of corporate secrets!  However, your overall social media plan should include definition of a social media policy that provides guidelines forwhat platforms the company will use, how employees use thesesocial networks, what kind of information can be shared (or not), and ramifications for violating these guidelines.  Innovative companies often create market shifting technology and want to protect this technology.  However, these same companies often have unique perspectives on the industry or intriguing histories of bringing products to market.  Social media provides a forum for sharing perspectives, without giving away IP, and inviting conversation that may lead to the next big innovation.

If your challenge is related to organizational structure, it is likely that the primary concern is one of employee empowerment.  Employees that do not feel empowered are unlikely to be comfortable with the open communication style required.  While the marketing department could be empowered to lead the effort, there are other options.  An option that will begin to build cross-company employee interest is to gain executive support and sponsorship.  Once you gain that support, work with your executive sponsor to develop an internal communication plan regarding the company’s development of a social media strategy.  This will provide employees with an ongoing view of the goals of the strategy and executive support for it.  By the time it is time to implement the strategy, some employees will be eager to participate thus alleviating the pressure on the marketing department.

These are just a few examples of overcoming cultural or organizational challenges before implementing a social media strategy.  Social media provides many benefits that make it well worth the effort to knock down internal hurdles.  What are the hurdles your company is facing?

What’s your perspective?

As marketers plan their social media strategy, they usually focus on content, resources and platforms.  I rarely hear anyone discuss organizational structure.  Yet, a company’s organizational model can reveal a lot about how they will use social networking platforms.  The structure of an organization impacts processes and behaviors that will reflect company and employee comfort with the openness and interactivity of social media. 

The primary organization structures are:

Structure	Characteristics	Adoption of Social Media
Functional	-          Employees perform a specific set of tasks (i.e., marketing, engineering, sales, etc.) -          Focus on operational efficiency and economies of scale -          Fosters technical expertise -          Creates silos -          Communication across silos is difficult -          Focus on process, hierarchy and control	-          Pursuit of social media  will require planning of  strategy, policy, clear metrics and employee training -          Social media most likely to be pursued by marketing department only -          Employees may not feel empowered to communicate socially   -          Social media primarily used to reinforce outbound marketing messaging
Divisional	-          Employees organized by product or geography -          Employees perform specific functions within the divisional structure -          High accountability for achieving goals -          Communication encouraged across function to achieve goals -          Little interaction between divisions -          Hierarchical within the division	-          Pursuit of social media  will require planning of  strategy, policy, clear metrics and employee training -          Social media effort led by marketing with intent to include other functions -          Strong interest in gaining external feedback
Matrix	-          Employees organized by function and product -          Structure reinforces and broadens employee expertise -          Reduces organizational silos -          Requires clear communication of goals, objectives and metrics -          Poor communication can create confusion and/or stress	-          Focus on communication will foster interest in use of social networks as extension of communication model -          Multi-tasking employees will easily adapt -          Requires clarity in how social media will support goals & objectives -          Collaborative environment will easily adapt to interactive nature of social media

 

The focus here is primarily around structure and does not take into account culture or communication style, which was discussed in a previous posting.  The level of bureaucracy in a company may impact willingness to communicate effectively internally, externally or on social networks. You may want to consider the impact of social media on existing organizational structures, business processes and communication methods.  While full scale reorganization is not the goal, education and training may help management and/or employees understand how the use of social media influences the existing business model.

While organizational theory segments company structures into the simple models referenced above, it is likely that your company reflects some mix of the models noted.  Your company’s approach to social media will reflect a combination of cultural and organizational influences.  It is important to recognize the challenges they may represent when building and implementing a B2B social media strategy.

What’s your perspective?

Last week I began a discussion about the impact of corporate culture on a company’s level of comfort with social media.  While I was thinking about this week’s continuation of this discussion, the CEO of my former employer, HP, resigned due to allegations of misconduct.   This news hit the social airwaves like tsunami last Friday. I enjoyed a 24 year career of Hewlett-Packard Company, which means I was lucky enough to have learned from the founders, Bill and Dave, what it means to be open, ethical, moral and to do business with integrity.   One of the key elements of HP’s Standards of Business Conduct is to “think about how your decision or behavior would look in a press article”.  This is a good foundation for us to consider when we think about how a company’s culture and organizational model impact the company’s use of social media.

HP’s culture and what became known as the “HP Way” focused on innovation, integrity and collaboration.   This culture was a natural match for social media.  The predecessor to today’s social networks was “MBWA" or management by walking around.  In HP, this meant an ability to learn from others in your office.  Employees would mix and mingle and share experiences.  Many careers grew through discovery and learning from peers.   HP’s founders would have been cautious about protecting HP’s Intellectual Property but they would have loved the ability to crowd source innovative concepts. However, over the past decade or so, the culture at HP changed.  This was a result of both external and internal forces.

External forces include the internet and the rampant availability of information.  They also include the increased demands from the financial services sector for all companies to provide and meet quarterly estimates.  This kind of instant gratification will change the way any company works.  Internal forces took the shape of CEOs and managers hired to lead change (defined in many diverse ways) but who each also had personal agendas.  In all cases the “HP Way” was deemed out dated and the collaboration of old gave way to siloed, hierarchical organizations with formerly empowered employees fearful of making even the smallest mistake.  Could Mark Hurd's HP, with a culture of cost containment, hierarchical decision making and limited employee empowerment, succeed in social media?

Interestingly, the answer is yes.  Consistent with its current command and control model, HP has a well defined, publically available, blogging policy.  They even have a digital media council, which includes representatives from all business units, that sets the policy for how HP will participate in social networks.  Any employee that will represent the company on a social network must take the requisite training.  So, HP empowers its employees with guidelines of expected behavior.  Is that really empowerment? I check on various HP blogs from time to time and follow several twitter feeds.  I find them interesting but cautious.  I think that HP could use social media as more than another PR channel.  I believe this is indicative of the internal culture.  That said, HP is number 22 on the NetPropex Social Index, which measures the social network activity of the largest U.S. corporations across a variety of social platforms.  Imagine what HP's score would be if the former culture of openness and collaboration was prevalent.

As a former HP employee and current HP shareholder, I hope HP’s next CEO balances innovation and operational excellence.  I hope they remember that their 300,000+ employees are the company’s biggest asset.  I hope they empower them to connect, communicate and collaborate, using social media, with their peers both inside and outside the company to create and innovate market changing solutions.

What’s your perspective?

You’re thinking about social media.  You’re convinced you need to have a plan to add social media to your existing marketing and/or communication strategy.  You’re thinking, well, we’ll just tiptoe into this effort, participate in a few social networks and see what happens.  There is nothing wrong with this plan, except you should think about  your corporate culture.  Of course, there are other details you also need to consider, but for the sake of this conversation, let’s focus on corporate culture.

Does your culture inhibit executive or employee adoption of social networking tools?  Do employees feel empowered to publically communicate on behalf of the company?  Do executives understand the openness of social conversations?

I’ve had comments to several of my blogs related to B2B social media, emphasizing the importance of culture.  So, I’ve done some thinking on this and refreshed my memory as to the different types of corporate cultures (it’s been a long time since those undergrad and MBA courses on organizational theory).  Culture is a combination of shared values, attitudes, assumptions, beliefs and behaviors.  Culture is grounded in the assumptions about how people interact.

A successful social media strategy is best achieved when there is a corporate culture that balances tops down direction with bottoms up initiative with external (customer) facing communication.  However, existing corporate cultures can inhibit this balance and subsequently the success of a social media strategy.  Which of these cultures best reflects your company?

Adaptive – just like it sounds, this company tries new processes, solutions, business models to see what works best.  This company is usually very externally focused and will adopt solutions that help them communicate effectively and efficiently.  This culture will easily adapt to social networks for business use.

Inert – this type of company is very internally focused and struggles to deal with new ideas.  In technology parlance, they are a laggard when it comes to adopting new technology.  This culture will be one of the last companies to adopt social networking.

Networked – this is a sociable company, but employees exhibit little company loyalty.  This company may lag a bit in adopting new ideas solely due to high employee turnover.  Once this company has decided to use social networks, employees will take advantage of it and it may foster employee retention.

Mercenary - this culture is ruthless and highly competitive.  If the new solution doesn’t fulfill the goal to win, it is not considered.  Without a strong ROI argument, this kind of company will not leverage social networks at the business level.

Fragmented – this company is a loose alliance of independent workers (i.e., law firm).  If a solution can be easily adopted by these workers and help them achieve their goals, it’s a winner, but it is unlikely that all workers will utilize the solution at the same level.

I’ll be writing more about company cultures and organizational dynamics as it relates to B2B social networks over the next few weeks.  Do these cultures resonate with you?  What kind of culture does your company exhibit? 

What’s your perspective?

A lot of Buzz

There is a lot of buzz about social media, social networking, social computing, whatever term you want to use.  We all understand that these solutions, which allow for connections to friends, colleagues or groups, emerged and became widely popular in the consumer space.   Now enterprises are jumping on the bandwagon and figuring out how to leverage the power of these technologies.  Initial success has been achieved in the business to consumer (B2C) space in a variety of customer support related models.  

Now, companies are seeking strategies to utilize social platforms, behind the corporate firewall,  to connect employees, increase product innovation, enhance knowledge management and more.   A key thought, to keep in mind as you consider social media, is these methods of communication are inclusive, not exclusive. 

Social Media solutions are a good fit when:

1. You want to broadcast your thoughts to a wide audience. 

   You may not know who will receive your message. You are open or eager to obtain feedback from anyone who can view the content.  For example, An executive needs to share his thoughts on the company’s position in the market or the company wishes to update its customers on new products.
   
   Blogs and micro-blogs enable these capabilities.  Blogs allow the author to express their thoughts in a concise manner with supporting facts or links to additional information.  Micro-blogs require the author to be even more concise due to the character limitation of most micro-blogging solutions.
   
   

2. Gathering information from a wide variety of users or consumers. 

   You may seek to create a catalog of key facts or it may be useful for customers to understand the nuances of certain products.
   
   Wikis allow users to contribute content with being censored.  This brings unbiased thoughts and definitions together for common review.  Customer forums or reviews are open to any user of a product or service.  They allow the users to comment freely on their experience with the product or service.
   
   

3. Collaboration across business groups, skill sets, or geography. 

   It is often necessary to reach out across the enterprise to find relevant resources and share project files.  Social networks (or perhaps a better term with in the enterprise, is collaboration network) simplify an employees ability to find, connect and communicate with the necessary resources.

Social media solutions can enhance existing platforms such as SharePoint or LotusNotes with features such as micro-blogging, embedded internal or external RSS feeds, employee profiles, employee networks, or status & activity updates.

What are your goals?  Can social media help you achieve them? 

What's your perspective?