Interesting concept - spending based on Social Business Maturity

I recently read a slideshare presentation from Jeremiah Owyang entitled How Corporations should Prioritize Social Business Budgets.  I found it very interesting, and thought provoking.  Here are a few insights ...

• 'Overall budgets increase as social business matures.'  This is counter to typical business cost curves.  The traditional theory is that a company can find and implement cost improvements as they mature and become more efficient.  It's interesting to think about how to 'sell' this concept to the finance team.  Perhaps Social Business investments should  increase as a 'migration' from traditional spending as ROI  becomes more evident.  The age-old challenge still exists ... how to stop work in 'the way we have always done things' projects in favor of new Social Business.  
• 'As social business matures, team sizes grow but spread cross-functionally across the enterprise.'   As companies think about staffing requirements, it's interesting to think about scalability and long term sustainability.  Even though dedicated teams may be more efficient in the short term, are they affordable as a long term strategy?  Perhaps Social Business should just a part of everyone's job.  It's like the analogy of using the telephone or instant messaging ... social capabilities are part of the tool kit that employees have to enable them to do their job better.
• 'To scale, organizations organize differently as they mature.'    It is interesting to think about a centralized or decentralized model for scaling.  Ultimate Social Business success is when it is completely integrated into a companies processes, including HR, Legal, Finance, Strategy, etc.  This requires a culture shift to promote open sharing, with a realization that open dialog will result in improved business results.  

The entire presentation is worth a read ... thanks to Jeremiah for sharing it openly with the broad community.

'Social' risks - are they unique?

 
Social Business is all about mitigating risks in support of driving business value.  Risks come in multiple dimensions:  business, legal, HR, technology, etc..  As companies begin to better understand the risks resulting from participating in social conversations, it's interesting to think about which are unique to 'social', and which are fundamentally enterprise risks that existed years ago.  Some examples of potential risks :

• Someone could post some comments that could potentially damage a company's brand image.  
• An employee could post confidential information, which could impact a product announcement.
• An employee could share someone's personal information, which could violate privacy laws.

The question is ... are these unique to social?  Prior to social capabilities ... could someone write an article in a newspaper that could potentially damage a companies brand?  Could an employee e-mail a confidential document to an un-authorized person?  Could an employee copy an external person on a personnel e-mail to an employee with their personal information?

The answer to all of the above is .. YES.   While there are some risks that could be unique to social, most of them are not.  So, when we talk about social business and the associated risks, what are the 'social' risks?

We need to consider the dimensions of risk:  their impact and likelihood of occurrence.  

• Impact:  While many of the risk themselves may not change, their impact may change .... due to the viral nature of social.  In the case of the newspaper article above.  This comment may only be viewed by a few thousand people (depending on the distribution of the paper).... while it now has the potential to spread in a viral fashion to millions of people very quickly.   
• Likelihood:  Let's now think about the likelihood of occurrence dimension.   With the easy access to blogging tools and twitter feeds, there are millions more people with easy access to express their opinions (both good and bad).  Could this drive a greater likelihood that someone may post some comments that could damage your brand?

When companies consider the social risks in these new dimensions, they will need to identify ways to mitigate these 'new' risks.  It's highly recommended that companies take the time, and conduct a Social Media risk assessment.  I'm sure it will uncover new insights and recommendations.

I welcome any comments or additional insights you'd like to share.

Manager Memo ...Not Working but Networking!

I liked the title from the ZDNet Blog post, ... Not Working, but Networking.  This is catchy, and powerful at the same time.   There is growing consensus that active participation by employees in social channels will provide business value.  But... there are still many managers that haven't yet gotten the 'memo'.  Blogging and tweeting are seen as personal social activities and are discouraged by many managers, since there is not a clear understanding of how it links to their department mission.  It does remind me of the days where employee use of the internet was also viewed as wasting time.   So, what needs to change?  It's easy to say that the culture of the company needs to change, but it's certainly an evolution. I see it in three major phases:

1. Grass roots efforts by early adopters is the starting point.  Passionate employees go outside 'cultural norms' and participate (with or without specific management permission). Value derived from these efforts can be used to start momentum within a compnay.
2. Executive leadership needs to set company wide agendas and strategies in support of Social Business.  Once this happens, it can drive support organizations (i.e. HR, Finance, IT) to align to common goals.  This is the phase where cultural norms begin to shift
3. Company wide management support, especially at the 1st level, is one of the mature phases of the evolution.  When management uniformly supports cross-company collaboration and social conversation, culture will begin to shift.

Social Business is a journey.  I find it fascinating to watch the evolution happen...

The pendulum swings again with Social Business

Over my 25 year career in large corporations, I've seen the pendulum swing in many areas.  I remember 'dumb terminals' on my desk driven from mainframe computers ... wow, I must be old :-).   The pendulum swung completely in the other direction to an individual workstation solution.  While this had some benefits (allowing customization), it certainly had some drawbacks as well (challenge of security, sharing common documents).  With this new era of social business and cloud computing, I see the pendulum swinging back once again.  People are realizing that there is some value to centralization for certain areas.  Cloud computing has many of the attributes of mainframe technologies, with social computing capabilities enabling easy collaboration across team members.

The pendulum effect has come to mind as I think about one of my current focus areas:  Social Intelligence.  In large enterprises, it's common to have individuals and business units create social listening and action plans based on their specific goals.  With the availability of free web capabilities, it's difficult to control.  While there are benefits to having individuals participate, they are missing out on common linkages between data .  In this new era, there is significant value in the intersection of information.  It's the age-old struggle between individual control and the benefit of the common good.  The challenge for organizations is to provide technology that enables individual customization of a common set of data.  Users are demanding it.   I agree with many of the insights in a recent blog post:  From Community Management to Command Centers.  Companies need to figure out how to effectively engage conversations in real time, encourage individual employee participation ... all while assuring that these actives are connected and leveraged across the enterprise.  It's the next real challenge!







 

Social Media 2011 prediction: Culture change

Happy New Year! 

I've been catching up on some great blogs with 2011 Social Media predictions.  Most agree that this will be a year where Social Media tools and capabilities start to demonstrate business value.  What is my prediction?  I think that 2011 will be the year where business cultures will shift away from the risk adverse culture of 'try it and see' to a more risk acceptance/mitigation culture that realizes that the rules have changed.  Executives will come to the realization that in order to compete, they need to enable and encourage their employees to be open, collaborative with clients and partners. 

Culture change is foundational, and typically very slow.  On the other side, the technology for early adopters moves very quickly.  In 2011, these enablers will have reached some level of maturity.  When companies change their culture in 2011 and take advantage of the available capabilities, the possibilities are endless. 

What is the biggest risk in social media?

I've led and been involved with various social media risk assessments.  It is a worthwhile exercise for any business, and should be reexamined on a regular basis.  One critical element is assuring that the assessment has equal focus on the benefits and the risks associated with social media.  Everything has risk.  The assessment needs to determine if the benefits outweigh the risks.  In many cases, the business will decide to accept the risk based on the perceived value.  Of course, risk should always be minimized by identifying and executing mitigation activities.

The biggest risk that repeatedly arises is the risk of not participating.  It's different that all the other risks which have a direct cause and effect.  This risk is having an effect due to inaction which could lead to loss of relationships and market share to competitors.  The impact is hard to quantify, but can be significant.  The mitigation for the risk is a tough one, since it involves culture change from the top.  Senior executives need to be convinced that there is a risk of not participating.  If companies don't recognize this risk, they may find themselves lagging the competition. 

What risks have you seen for your company? I'd be interested in your insights.

FTC's "do not track" implications to Social Business

There is an article in today's NY Times titled "F.T.C. Backs Plan to Honor Privacy of Online Users".  It describes the Federal Trade Commisions (FTC) proposal to create a "do not track" mechanism that would put the same type of controls on businesses as the "do not call" registry.   While I agree with providing users with information about how their information will be used, I do think it has to be balanced with an understanding of the benefits associated with the use of this information.   A few years ago, I know that many people were very concerned about having pictures of their house taken by google maps.  But, now many accept that risk knowing that the benefit of finding directions to other places is significantly improved. 

As governance policies are created to mitigate risk, there needs to be a careful analysis of the risk and benefits.  This takes careful analysis.  It becomes even harder when you consider the dimension of what the benefit could be in the future.  As another example, I first thought that location based services were 'creepy'.  Why would I want complete strangers to know where I am?  The risk is that some crazy person will do harm to me or my family.  However ... the benefits can be huge.  If I am driving by a department store, would I welcome a coupon to shop there for 20% off?  Or, would I like to have a 'free french fries' promotion sent to me on my mobile phone as I am walking past a McDonalds?   If I am never given the opportunity to experience the benefits, how will I know if they are work the risk?

I do agree that there needs to be continued work on mitigating risks (e.g. regulations on the collectors of the information to assure that it does not get into the wrong hands along with a strong mechanism to allow users to 'opt out'), but it must be done in the context of potential benefits.

This is a key turning point for Social Business.  Too much government regulation will choke innovation.  The ultimate loser will be the consumer.  I'm hopeful that we can strike the right balance, and educate consumers on the potential benefits of Social Business and let them then make the decision about risks of sharing information.