Confessions of an eBiz Junkie

Designing a Social Media Team

Much like the traditional web property, organizations will soon recognize the need to build a team around their Social Media offering. It will be interesting to watch how this plays out as there's not a 1 to 1 correlation of skill sets when you move from a 1.0 to a 2.0 model. You'll likely focus more on the social capabilities of the team and less on more traditional web responsibilities (HTML, production, editorial, etc). You'll need individuals who understand the very nature of community engagement and social interaction.

I've been thinking a bit about the team I'd like to pull together as we evolve our social offering and thought I'd share for input and comment...

Twitter in the Enterprise

Me - "Hi. My name is Len and I have a problem.

The Crowd (in unison) - "Hi Len..."

I think I might be on the road to becoming a Twitterholic.

I have to admit, when I first signed up to Tweet, I saw it as a bit of a novelty. My first impression, and many early Tweets supported the thinking, was centered around point in time activity (I'm having eggs for breakfast or Man do I hate shiny things..." ). Not sure if I just didn't see it then or if the Twitter crowd has helped evolve the overall behavior of the community.

It's since become a critical part of my day-to-day activity. I use it to gather business intelligence, ask questions to a wide variety of subject matter experts and expand my overall network.

IMO, the opportunities afforded by Twitter to the enterprise are huge.

The Candidates and the Community

I received a LinkedIn request today and followed the link to accept... And there he was, Senator John McCain asking me "What is the biggest challenge America faces?".

I've been impressed with the way the candidates have embraced Social Media to connect with the voters...

MVP for a Day

I'm realizing more and more that physical internal events can really help build awareness around the opportunities afforded through Social Media. There's certainly no shortage of passion and interest - so the trick becomes providing the right level of information such that the energy is channeled in a productive way. We've been doing this through our Lunch n' Learn events - But took it to another level this week.

On Monday, we were fortunate to serve as host for Microsoft community executive and CEO/Founder of CGT Consulting, Sean O'Driscoll. I've been following Sean for quite some time, and consider him among the top thought-leaders in this space.

We'd posted an open invite to the event on our internal community platform - and it filled almost immediately. Based on strong interest from our global audience, we extended to a LiveMeeting and had healthy international representation.

I'd say the event was a huge success...

Blogs Abound

EMC has had a presence in the blogosphere for well over a year now. We'd originally started out with a small handful of key voices, and the experience to date has been quite positive.

This week, we've extended our presence considerably by adding several new employee blogs. In the interest of full disclosure, most of these folks aren't new to blogging. Like myself, the majority have been doing it for some time. For others, our internal Social Media platform was a great way to test drive blogging and hone their voice before going public.

So what?

Staffing the Corporate Web Team of Tomorrow

I've been in this line of business for awhile now. Adequately resourcing a corporate web team has been a challenge for everyone I've ever spoken to. However, I think the corporate world has made leaps and bounds in recent years understanding the criticality of the online channel and resourcing appropriately.

I believe we're at a turning point. One that will require a rethink of the typical eBiz organizational structure. We've all heard the notion that the typical .COM platform is dead... Surpassed by the emergence of all things social. I think this a bit dramatic - But not completely off base.

The majority of companies I've talked to organize primarily around their web properties. .COM gets a team, Extranet gets a team, Intranet gets one, and so on.

EMC is getting some buzz for our internal work in the social space, thanks to some of the experiences Chuck, Mark and myself have posted. As a result, I've had a few companies calling on us for an experience POV. In most instances, people have a toe in the water with one or two people looking at implementing social networking in their respective company. But it's always grass roots and with much hesitation.

Over the weekend, I considered just how critical user generated content had become in my daily life...

I recently vacationed in St John. Skipping the 'official' travel sites, I headed immediately to TripAdvisors user forums to understand the good and the bad for the island. Is it a worthwhile place to go? What's the general driver for people who vaca here. etc;

I found a nice little villa, and again used Google Blog search and the Expedia forums to find opinions of those who had been there. Did I briefly look at the official villa site? Yup... But took it with a grain of salt.

I also wanted to make a purchase on Amazon this weekend. A brief look at the formal product description followed by an hour digging into the user reviews. I realized I would no longer buy a product without reading the thoughts of existing customers.

Clearly the emergence of Social capabilities is invasive. With the footprint already quite strong in consumer markets, it's quickly becoming an expected offering across all segments.

With this trend, the traditional organizational model for .COM's must change. In tomorrows model, the focus on social capabilities will be primary, not secondary as they often are today. Put differently, assume you have a staff of ten running a .COM site and one or two people driving social media. Tomorrow those numbers will likely flip - with much more focus on the social aspects of the web property and much less on the messaging, editorializing, creation, etc;.

I suggest now is the time for eBusiness executives take a hard look at their current org structures while considering the inevitable focus to a more consumer to consumer approach. Social engagement and interaction will be the foundation of tomorrows corporate presence, unlike the Web 1.0 approach of pushing information unidirectionally from the brochure-like sites of yesterday.

Why Social Media Could Suck But Doesn't Have To

I love the evolution of the web. I really do. The continued adoption / integration of Social Media into the very fabric of our online experience brings exciting opportunities.

BUT - One of the most exciting aspects of Web 2.0 is also one of the ugliest, in my opinion... Everyone has a voice. An equal voice. And I think that's a bit risky.

Imagine if everyone had the means to create an encyclopedia and get into mass distribution with ease.  Think of the propagation of inaccurate information. When thinking about this blog topic, I considered using a header along the lines of "Giant Meteor to Slam Earth in June 2008" to make the point. My better half suggested I reconsider before I got my legions of followers (hi again, mom) into an utter panic.

The point is - As it becomes easier and easier for the 6.6 billion people on earth to create and publish content to the masses, the accuracy of information will become increasingly questionable. What's that saying? 'Opinions are like ******** - everyone's got one'. Give them a means to get their voice out there and we have a problem.

Naturally, there's the common sense element at play here... Don't believe everything you read. But that gets pretty tough when sifting through an ocean of potentially invalid information.

As Social Media evolves, I believe the solution lies within the community itself. We'll all have to step up and play a pro-active role to determine what's accurate and what's not. We'll have to effectively legitimize an authors brand through the voice of the community. But - there's a big behavior change needed before this can happen. How many times have *you* rated a user review of a product on Amazon? I bet very few of you have (myself included). I read them all the time - and use it as a trusted source of information - but rarely take the next step to validate the information by rating it's accuracy.

Wikipedia is clearly a micro example of the larger issue - and had been plagued with it's own problems along these lines. It sure does get challenging when you take the problem statement suffered by a single site such as Wikipedia and refocus it to the web at large.

It's an interesting and exciting challenge that we'll have to tackle together.

Hello?!? Anyone Home?

Finding time to blog of late has been tough. In fact, I've spent little time doing anything external (No Facebook, little Twittering, etc;) If you've been following past posts, you know that we're in the throws of a rather major web initiative - One that will launch very, very soon.

If you've been a part of similar efforts of this scale, you know the last mile can be tough. Deadlines loom, the list of issues never seems to shrink, and the general buzz around the program drives demand for more information - People are excited and want to know more. It's great - but can also be a distraction.

You're also forced into the hard discussions around what's critical for launch. While the entire duration of such a project is important, this last leg is crucial. The pressure if high, expectations even higher - and project teams are put into difficult positions where compromising on requirements can seem like the only way out.

I'm very fortunate. The team we've pulled together refuses to compromise the solution. They want to deliver the highest quality product possible. When faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge, instead of defaulting to a post launch fix, the team relentlessly rallies around creative options. They're doing so with complete disregard for the personal sacrifice involved.

Having been through about ten such projects in my career, my advice in these situations is to stay the course. Don't waver on quality - Doing so will likely come back to haunt you.

So, we're close.. and the team is excited... actually more like proud.  You can feel it. Folks have been through a lot but know they're close to the end of this sixteen month marathon. They also know they're part of something big - and that's really rewarding. While the long weekends, long days and longer nights can be wearing, there's nothing like popping the cork and toasting victory.

More to come... Soon. Real soon.  ;)

edit - Just came across this great illustration of the forces that play against such projects. Good stuff.

 

Social Media and Enterprise Adoption

Yawn - followed by snooze button - followed by inevitable stumble out of bed.

Following my morning bowl of oatmeal, I jump on Twitter and advise the world (who's waiting with great anticipation, btw) that I'm off to work.

I'm stuck in traffic, so I proceed to IM my team / peers with thoughts on the day ahead.

Once in the office, I fire up NetNewsWire and check the thousand posts that came out overnight. Naturally I'll jump into a few of the discussions and provide my $.02.

At this point, I often get distracted by a handful of the posts and go check out the latest in hip webby tools. This usually takes up a bit of time.

I then take a look at our internal social media platform to see what's transpired over the course of the night. Perhaps I'll jump into a few discussions, shore up the "How-To" wiki or start a pithy blog post.

Off to Facebook to see what's new with the gang - Check out my groups, upcoming events, etc...

Log into email - oh wait, I have a LinkedIn request... Off to LinkedIn... Hmmm, I don't remember working with this guy??

OK - Finally time to check email. It's noon????? Wow. What happened to the day? OK, lunch first, then email. Walking to the cafe, I announce to the world through Utterz that it's all about the Beef Barley Soup today... Can't wait.

In a recent post, Jeremiah Owyang suggested that 2007 was all about figuring out what Social Media meant to the enterprise. I agree. Many companies are beginning to invest by putting a toe or two in the water. SM is extending beyond the PR team and is beginning to find it's way into the inner workings of the corporation.

The behavior above is not conducive to enterprise adoption. I'm a 'knowledge worker', this stuff is part of my job. But what about the countless masses who could certainly benefit from Enterprise 2.0 but could never dream of investing the time necessary to truly tap the potential.

While individual tools are great, it's the sum of the parts that will really change the business landscape. Before we get there, however, there needs to be much integration. We need to take the use case above and turn it into a seamless and integrated experience. Of course, things like single sign on and transportable preferences will be paramount, but that seems to be well understood with the recent surge in social graph discussions. It will be interesting to watch... Will vendors rally to provide one stop shop solutions for all things Enterprise 2.0, or will the concept of Open Social dominate the enterprise landscape with distributed development with open API's?

Reinventing the Enterprise

On Friday, I was invited to an AvenueA-Razorfish sponsored summit on "Reinventing the Enterprise". The focus of the day long event was around the impact of social media in the enterprise. They had some great speakers and, as usual, the AARF gang brought a lot to the table.

Bob Lord, President of AARF, started the day off by sharing his insight around the challenges and opportunities of introducing Web 2.0 into the corporate culture. I appreciated his high level approach as it's very similar to the strategy we've embraced. Bob provided these four guiding principles:

Experiment - Just try it. There's no penalty if you don't hit perfection on the first try. This is new ground. If you're trying to break into the enterprise with social media - you're a pioneer - period. There's no play book, yet.

Simple - Don't over complicate things out of the gate... There's plenty of time for that later. Start small, build an initial offering, perhaps providing the raw basics, and let it evolve.

Be Global - Not in the geographic sense, but rather organizationally. Don't work in a silo - reach out across groups, find partners to help participate and evangelize your effort.

Social - Be sure to tap into the social network itself... Shape the culture through the voice of the community. It's what it's all about.

Bob's keynote really set the tone for the remainder of the day.

It was also the first time I was able to hear Jimmy Wales present. As you may know, Jimmy is the creator of Wikipedia and is working on a new venture called Wikia. Jimmy spoke about the challenges ahead as the corporate world tries to adopt the new media. Among the challenges he sees is the fact that we tend to focus on the *possible* negative behavior that social media in the enterprise enables - and design a solution around the potential negative. In other words, the final solution suffers - even worse fails - as the fear of the possible (albeit unlikely) is among the core design principles.

Overall there were 60 or so people in attendance. While the conversations, presentations and panel discussion were excellent, my biggest take away came as somewhat of a negative surprise. Many of the questions from the audience had tones of hesitation and concern. There's clearly a strong sense of unease. Successful adoption of social media in this environment will require us to let down our guard a bit - and to accept the fact that not everything has to be locked down - and that open and public dialog is OK. Folks seemed to be particularly concerned around the HR and legal implications of social media in the workplace. While I can understand the concern, I do believe it to be largely unfounded.

The truth is, social media is not all that different from email. Recall the concern in the early 90's as we took hours of training on the proper use of email. Fifteen years later and we've managed to survive. I don't recall the last time the business world came to a grinding halt because of an inappropriate, sensitive or politically charged email. Social media is different - but not that different. The risks and challenges are similar... We'll survive, but we have to embrace it first.