Removing Barriers: How social media can transform organisations
I’m passionate about how properly implemented technology can break down barriers in organisations. Large organisations in particular suffer from departmentalism and only limited flow of information. This can be enforced by the infrastructure, but more commonly it’s an accidental consequence of the difficulty of keeping several thousand people in touch with strategy and each other.
Fifteen years ago (I’m how old?!) I helped bring the world of organisational email to a large local authority. Information that took days to reach rural offices was there in seconds. They were as connected to the formal communication channels as anyone, and could even engage in some electronic banter. Then, ten years ago, the same team in a different organisation implemented an Intranet - a process that saw much of the formal documentation of the organisation being shared and searchable, equal access to news and staff directories for information and convenience.
I don’t intend to put any of this earlier work down. Despite today’s issues of email overload, the ability to communicate and access information was improved enormously. The return on investment was actually measurable (and was measured - more than any other ICT project in the organisation). We didn’t bring down the silos, but we made quite a few holes in them.
The problem is, technology was linking people with written data and information created by people, but not directly with the people themselves. It’s a cliche to say that an organisation’s most important asset is its people: their skills, experience and knowledge. Email and intranets did little to share that talent and to increase understanding of the mighty resource that underpins the organisation.
Cue: social media. The very technology many organisations seek to ban through internet access policies could be the toast of board rooms everywhere.
Social media can come in a number of forms - blogs, wikis, networking tools, media sharing sites. We can create an environment where the whole organisation can learn about the skills, knowledge, feelings and interests of its employees. The biggest difference to previous sharing technologies is that it’s bottom-up: the masses feeding what they know into the organisation in a way that gets retained.
A wiki provides a great example. Jim in personnel has responsibility for keeping the flexi-time system up and running and posts a manual. But Maureen in finance remembers how difficult it was for her to get to grips with when she started her job six months ago and so she edits Jim’s manual, adding a few useful hints and tips. Users very often know more about the user of a system than the people administering it. Cisco engineers, meanwhile, use a wiki to share their own on-the-job experience of dealing with equipment - all the things that get missed in a manual. Think about it: the experience of an engineer in London is being shared with an engineer in Sydney, even though they would normally have no other form of communication. (And - now they know about each other - they can follow it up with a phonecall! How passe!).
Meanwhile Tim in the chief executive’s department has created a Powerpoint describing how the new environmental policy will impact his team. Does Brian in marketing have to do the same? Of course not - he just checks the easy to use, open file-sharing system, does a quick search and edits Tim’s work to meet his own requirements (and in the meantime is mildly impressed by Tim’s use of clipart).
Blogging also has significant opportunities. The radio-station-currently-called-Virgin-UK-but-soon-to-be-renamed has a new management team, brought in following the station’s purchase by the Times of India, understandably creating uncertainty and concern for staff. There’s potentially huge change afoot following years of neglect.
So the new management team established a blog. Onegoldensquare.com is a forum where anyone involved can post ideas about the direction of the company. It’s uncensored. The new management team have posted their thoughts, along with many others. Comments and debate are welcome. It’s no longer them-and-us… it’s a team pulling together to establish the company as a UK leader in radio. Isn’t that what every organisation wants - not least one undergoing change.
BT have recently introduced a platform for blogging on their internal network. Everyone can share their ideas and thoughts. Not just that, but BT recognises that it’s not just about getting things off employees’ chests. It’s building up a body of thoughts, experience, knowledge and ideas which can be used for many years to come.
I’m going to blog about another angle to breaking down those silos and easing the path of social media: combining social media with Wikinomics. In the meantime, I’d love to hear of your own examples of social media use in organisations: post here on the blog or on the new FriendFeed room for this very topic: http://friendfeed.com/rooms/social-media-in-organisations
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment