Social Business Experimentation and Enabling Failure Agility

Your social business plan needs to build in a tolerance for failure during attempts to innovate—in other words… agility.

Although IBM didn't mint the idea of social business, they have certainly taken up the standard and become proponents of the approach as is pointed out by an article from this week's Fast Company FC Expert Blog. The idea of business agility for enterprise social media efforts figures prominently in the article: "Since not every social business initiative will take hold, it is important to try lots of approaches and move on when one doesn’t work. IBM describes this as 'agile development.'"

Agile development is a borrowing from the software development world. Perhaps too simply put, It is an approach that espouses the rapid development of working software feature-by-feature instead of via carefully developed project plans and estimates. One practice from agile development, the sprint, is all about short bursts of activity designed to develop just a few features of a new product. 

In social media efforts, the analogy has profound implications. At a time when most companies are obsessing about the Return-On-Investment (ROI) of social media efforts and CEO's are looking for detailed project plans that often delay social media launches for months or even years, the agile mindset is something that social media proponents both inside and external to companies would do well to adopt, using the idea of rapid, low-intensity experimentation to get a foothold and build trust slowly within an organization.

Social media business efforts do not tend to crystallize this quickly, especially in organizations where considerable anxiety emanates from the executive team. The C-suites at so many companies I speak with dwell beneath the Sword of Damocles—knowing that they need to do something about social media but fearing the consequences of actually engaging. An agility-based approach to social business can take some of the apprehension out of creating a full-blown social media plan and can set your business free—at last.
 

65% of US Adults now use social media, Pew Internet says

New research has just been released by Pew Internet detailing how social media usage by U.S. adults has continued to grow. Of particular interest in the report is the age data:

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While the youngest demographic continues to dominate social media usage, the 65+ age category still garners an impressive one in three social media users.

Also note that the Urban vs. Rural umbers are not far apart at all.

The implications for business users are clear. We are seeing the adoption curve for users continuing to increase across all categories. A successful social media strategy must be mindful of all demographic audiences.
Filed under  //   demographics   social media   strategy  
 

Social Media Non-Strategies

Is your social media strategy nothing more than fluff and wishful thinking?

In The perils of bad strategy, published by McKinsey, Professor Richard Rumelt outlines a few of the bad habits we've gotten into when building business strategies.

Failure to Face the Problem

The inability to define a problem, says Rumelt, has to be one of the largest difficulties faced by organizations trying to formulate a social media strategy. So many organizations leap into the fray and start a blog, or experiment with Twitter with no clear idea about what they'd like to achieve. And they have no idea about what they'd like to achieve because they don't know what problem or obstacle they want to use social media to address.

A social media strategy needs to reflect the overall strategy of an organization. 

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If the organization cannot articulate a clear strategy in the context of its place in the market, its strengths, weaknesses and opportunities that can be leveraged for lasting competitive differentiation, it will be extremely difficult to create a clear social media strategy!

Looking to one of the most recent successful social media campaigns, the entertaining Old Spice YouTube ads, it was clear that the social media strategic objective was to engage a younger demographic and change perceptions of a product that had been seeming older and stodgier.

 

Old Spice succeeded in doing what Rumelt proscribes. First, diagnose the nature of the challenge and casts it in a way that reduces its complexity. In the case of Old Spice, the challenges of turning around an ailing market share and increasingly older demographic seemed incredibly complex. What the company managed to leverage was a new approach taking advantage of social media tools to be responsive and actively engage with audiences. The company produces many YouTube "commercials," many of which were responses to people who commented on the originally planned ones either on YouTube or other social media channels like Twitter.

Their approach was integrated with the rest of the organization's marketing which in turn integrated with the company's strategic goals. Social media wasn't just about straight advertising speak about what a cool, new approach they had. They let their action speak by moving nimbly to create something interesting that did far more than create "positive buzz," something that helped turn around an ailing brand and instill a sense of fun in conversations about their product.

The same approaches can work for companies that wish to increase sales leads, hire better talent, improve investor relations, or employer employees. But it's the accurate diagnosis of the situation followed by a coherent plan of actions (not mere words) that matches the organization's corporate strategy (which hopefully isn't also vague!) that wins the day.
Filed under  //   strategy  
 

"I just ripped one sweet tweet" ... social media isn't just for the young

I spotted this great video today from HNi, a non-traditional insurance brokerage. I've presented to more than one insurance organization over the past year that expressed an interest in being engaged with social media but ultimately decided to stand around with their hands in their pockets over the usual reasons: perceived risk, fear of litigation, and lack of trust in their own employees.

Meanwhile, organizations like HNi are eating their lunch. Plus, they produce fun videos like this to make their point.

Working in a highly regulated industry does not mean you cannot engage meaningfully in the social media space. With content workflow planning that vets online content through executive leadership and your legal department and with the tools to collect and audit social media interactions (such as the upcoming release of  Actiance Vantage for IBM Connections), there are few barriers to what you can do to engage with customers, employees, investors, and partners.

And to the point of the video, social media usage has now gained significant numbers of users in all age categories.

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The full report from Pew is illuminating and well worth reading.
 

Google vs. Facebook / Google vs. Microsoft 365

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The gloves come off and the big contenders—Google, Facebook, and Microsoft--are ready to dust it up. Or is it nothing more than a schoolyard scuffle?

Google is gearing up for the release of its Google+ social networking application, a direct attempt to compete with Facebook.

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The jury is out whether there's any real hope of capturing even a portion of the Facebook audience, but I've got to say that the innovations they're using to improve ad hoc chats and sharing interests (they're calling them Sparks) looks like a list of lessons learned from the now defunct Google Wave, a tool which I liked very much but never found its niche.

At the same time that Google is trying to take a bite out of Facebook, Microsoft is trying to take a swing at Google's online collaboration platform, Google Docs, this time with the new Microsoft Office 365.

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Again, it's a question whether 365 can unseat the popular Google Docs tools, beloved by many small and medium business owners. Microsoft's more entrenched place in the enterprise gives them an advantage with a cloud-based pitch, whereas Google still seems to be scrambling to make a play in the business community (at least beyond the world of startups).

I don't think I'm making a big stretch to say that neither the social networking offer by Google or the new online document tools by Microsoft will be much more than a passing novelty. The competitors that each hopes to unseat are simply too advanced in their respective categories to be caught. But consider the strategic importance of not unseating the incumbent leader in the social networking or online document spaces but instead establishing two important business objectives:
  • Minimize or soften the distinctive advantage of the incumbent
  • Demonstrate a better breed of the technology class in question
By creating a Google+ that may never do more than nip at the heels of Facebook, Google demonstrates its ability to offer a look what a next generation social networking application can be. It's probably a more important objective for Google to show that it is competitive and innovative than successful in this space, all while poisoning the well for its competitor… how? As a Facebook user who will probably at least try out the new network service, I will very likely at some point post on my Facebook wall that I'm drooling over one feature or another of Google+ and wish that it were supported on Facebook. The subtle consumer effect is to sow seeds of dissatisfaction with what Facebook is building, poisoning the well of my good will toward the dominant network (well, okay, I'm not sure I have good will exactly toward Facebook, but it's so-so will…). If Google+ is really somewhat successful, maybe it will engender enough of that dissatisfaction among Facebook users that they will complain loudly until Facebook will have no choice but to build the same functionality into their system.

Suddenly, the market leader is put into the position of reacting instead of forging ahead and innovating on its own.

While the pundits snipe at these new technology entries, I'll be interested to watch how the market leaders react. If, that is, the new entries resonate at all with users already comfortable with their Facebook and Google Docs platforms.
 

57% of Inc. 500 Use Social Networks to Recruit

A recent study of the Inc. 500 social media usage conducted by the Center for Marketing Research showed, among other facts, that over half of the companies are using social networks for the express purpose of recruiting.

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In all candor, the numbers seem low to me. While the study states that it is statistically significant, I wonder to what degree the company representative who responded had visibility into the day-to-day recruiting function. At the very least, I would hazard that LinkedIn is among the most heavily used for recruiting whether you are a small or large shop. Can anyone shed light on this for me?

 

10 Out Of The Box Job Hunting Tips

Some good thoughts about the job hunt from the War Room blog.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/warroom/~3/pT48yyyhje0/10-outside-of-the-box-job-hunting-tips-2011-1

- via Feeddler RSS Reader

 

Good night and good luck.

From Evernote:

Good night and good luck.
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Yes. It's after 10:30 on a Friday night and I am still working on JobCamp preparations. Am I crazy? Yes.
 

Recruiting Innovation: LinkedIn Now Lets You "Follow" Companies

In case you’ve missed it, LinkedIn now supports a really useful new feature that allows you to “follow” any company updates. How do I do it, you ask? Just search for any company profile:

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When you get to the company profile, notice that you can just click “Follow company” over on the right:

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From here on out, that same section of the site will offer you options for notifications about the following:

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Obviously, this is a hugely practical way for recruiters to keep tabs on our key competitors.

I am wondering, however, if LinkedIn will begin to get pressure from companies wanting to turn off the ability for individuals outside off a company to follow, namely because of the competitive intel it provides anyone interested about company direction or if a large number of employees happen to be leaving. Imagine how that might affect stocks?

If you've enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing. Have you started using this new LinkedIn feature? Tell us your thoughts about it in comments!

 

CNN calls social networks a challenge to cable news. Job boards, however? Fearless.

Social networks a challenge to cable news: CNN US president

(AFP) – 1 day ago

NEW YORK — The biggest challenge to Cable News Network is not other 24-hour television news stations but social networks like Facebook and Twitter, the president of CNN US said Wednesday.

"The competition I'm really afraid of are social networking sites," Jon Klein said at the Bloomberg BusinessWeek 2010 Media Summit here. "That's an alternative that threatens to pull people away from us.

"The people you're friends with on Facebook or the people you follow on Twitter are trusted sources of information," Klein said. "You click on links they send to you and you trust them.

"Well, we want to be the most trusted name in news," he said. "We don't want the 1,000 people you follow in Twitter to be the most trusted sources for you.

"That's a challenge and we have to rise to that challenge," Klein said.

"So I'm far more worried about the 500 million people on Facebook than I am about two million people watching Fox," the News Corp-owned station which is CNN's major competitor in the cable news arena, Klein said.

The CNN executive said his network's "mission" is to drive social network and other Web users to "link back to something on CNN."

Besides expanding its footprint on the Internet with news and video, CNN is looking at mobile devices, Klein said.

"Online is a big growth area for us, mobile has enormous growth potential and domestic US cable is actually a growth area," he said. "There's a lot of room to grow.

"We're in a lot of places and I think that's the model that can be very successful for us," Klein said. "Everyone in the media business is actively loooking for multiple revenue streams, that's no secret."

Klein, a longtime producer at broadcast network CBS who took over as head of CNN's US operations in 2004, also said that with the explosion of news outlets and the Internet just being at the scene of a news event was no longer enough.

"Simply getting there used to be a big achievement," he said. "Nowadays, you've got to provide more than just being there.

"Offering the depth and analysis is harder," he said. "It takes more brainpower, it takes more work, it takes more thought, it takes more creativity.

"People are pretty up to speed on what happened today," he said. "You've got to give them more insight about what's going on. That is where we are going to try to continue to make a difference."

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

via google.com

Okay, so CNN is afraid of social networks and the potentially damaging impact upon their business, but job boards are clearly not. Who are the dumb guys here?

About

I direct an executive IT recruiting business with offices in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Indianapolis.

Finding the right Information Technology professional who fits your technical requirements and company's work environment is tough. Top companies engage my services because I am relentless, because my research skills are excellent, and because I understand and build strong talent networks both virtually and in the real world.

My specialty is finding and hiring information technology executives and senior level practitioners, including CIO's, CTO's, VP's of development or PMO, directors, managers, and architects.

If you are seeking new career options in Information Technology and would like me to review your resume or discuss your search, you can reach me by calling (414) 312-4233. Learn about current career opportunities at: http://www.cytiva.com/spr/ext/search.asp?act=list&cf3=5

My clients include the Fortune 1000 with an emphasis in the Midwest; however, I have been engaged on top level searches nationally. My clients' industries include technology, manufacturing, health care, and financial services.

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