Why IT and Communications professionals need to sit together...

This week I met several professional Internal Communicators at the Melcrum conference (see my post below) and over the week end I'll meet about 20 CIOs from several Belgian public and private organisations...

Both want(ed) to hear about "social media" or how to use social media within the enterprise and make it work.

While a couple of days ago I defended the case that internal communicators need to sit together with their IT counterpart in order to be able to make their projects a success - I will do exactly the same with the CIOs I'll meet this week end.

There is a serious "schism" between the two professions while both internal communications and IT are crucial to make enterprise 2.0 projects successful and adapted to the end users.

Where IT professionals often use "bandwidth", "security" & "confidentiality" as the wrong excuses to block employees from accessing the social web - Internal Communications professionals often complain about the "platform IT is imposing on us" or "they don't see it doesn't answer our needs"...

These type of conversations will end up to nothing. It is time for both functions to meet and talk the same language.

If communicators would understand the basics of internet security, infrastructure, roll out plans and product road maps and if IT professionals would start to understand the business value of a social networked enterprise and would be able to put perceived risks into context I do think we would be off to a good start.

The one - but oh so crucial - missing link between the two parties is the business case.

Either IT is blindly following the IT suppliers road map or Communications are asking for "a Facebook like" feature on the intranet... This will not help.

Start by making the business case for social media within the enterprise first;

1. do a cultural audit if need be
2. survey your employees to know where the communication gaps are & ask them what the collaboration pain points are
3. bring these data together and start to define possible benefits you would achieve by reducing the issues/pain points
4. try to detail the benefits in areas of cost reduction, business process improvement etc.. and try to put money behind these.
5. try, together with IT, to find collaboration features (file sharing, social networking, co-creation tools, etc..) and possible platforms which could be a solution for the problem.
6. decide on the tool(s) or platform best suited for your specific needs
7. implement and roll out in full cooperation with the IT and HR department.

I know it is easier said than done and that not all organisations  - or C-level sponsors - are ready for such an approach but talking would already help a lot.

Most internal communicators I know have never met with the IT management of their company and vice -versa. Both functions need to work in tandem if they want to succeed in their organisation.

Yes dear communications colleague - using IE6 in the company is not the way to go - and yes IT colleague, not everyone needs an internal Twitter account - you're both right, but please, sit down and talk.

And then I am wondering.... Should their be a "social media conference" targeted at both audiences ? Would this help ? What do you think ?

The impact of social media on corporate information management ?

These last couple of days have been hectic....

Caroline Van Marcke (middle) at IOD2009I officialy left IBM last Friday and started to work for Van Marcke Group as their Chief Social Media Officer on Tuesday... Just on time to immediately fly to Berlin for... an IBM conference of 3 days on the topic of information management !

The interesting sessions on information management (from a business perspective for me) and hearing some very good speakers - author Frans Johansson has definitely some passion going there - were definitely worth the 3 days in Berlin.

But what struck me right from the beginning was the incredible, and largely underestimated, impact social media will have on corporate information management.

Imagine an organisation which truly uses social media to connect with employees, business partners and clients...

Not just a company that sets up a blog because it is fashionable but an organisation that really wants to engage with its constituents and gain insight from it.

Frans Johansson - AuthorThen think how all these data streams, conversations and connections could interact with existing infrastructure.

Example; the Twitter updates used by customer support of company X, integrated with its CRM system, its stock management system, the monitoring system of its PR department and so on...

All that information could then be data mined, classified, analysed etc.. in order to improve customer relations, customer support, product developments and so on.

Because to me that's the real use of social media on an enterprise level.

Real Time Twitter Feed at IOD2009Enabling employees to respond correctly and quickly to client questions by connecting with them in a transparent and direct way.

Enabling diverse teams (think development, creatives, research) to work together on a same problem through the use of wikis, blogs, and social networking in order to find a better solution than the standard one.

How will all these data streams be managed ? Can they be managed ? Are organisations even thinking about this already ?

During the Information On Demand conference the subject popped up... but not as a clearly defined topic on the agenda.

I do think this area of "social media impacting information management" is really challenging and interesting to research as it will impact more and more organisations in the near future.

What do you think ?

Enterprise 2.0 Questions - Social Networks a waste of time ?

In his blogpost of June last year, Andrew McAfee listed "some questions you might get asked" related to the use of social media within the corporate world (Enterprise 2.0)...

I already gave my answer to one of the questions listed there about the use of internal blogs. Today I am trying to answer another one in his original list; one about social networks...

Will people just use social networking software to plan happy hour, rather than to get work done?

This almost exact question came on during a recent presentation I gave to Human Resource Managers about social media, just last week... So Andrew, you're right about those questions, they do come up ! ;-)

Here's my take on this one:

Internal social networks are already a fact within companies... People gather for a coffee, talk during lunch, meet up to see "how things are going" etc... They are part of the social fabric & most corporate cultures respect and support them.

So for one, I don't see why this would be so different if and when these networks happen online within the organisation. I would imagine it could even be an added bonus to international or geographically disperse companies. Employees connecting with colleagues far away...

But like most of these new tools, social networks tend to be seen as "not serious", "more play than work" etc...

The questions to ask are;

Where is the business value, the social value and do these 2 interconnect at my company.

Do I value the fact that my employees have the possibility to connect across business units, official organisation charts and positions ? Do I promote cross company, cross cultural networking as a source of innovation ?

Because let's face it - your colleagues are already creating online networks on Facebook & LinkedIn and in most cases it is not to lynch the company, on the contrary, it is because they have a sense of being connected through the organisation they work for.

Again, it is about setting down guidelines, agree on usage and put the tool - in this case internal social networks - within the company and employee context.

Explain how and why the tool can add value - both to the company & the employee (effectiveness, productivity, reduction of search time, creation of virtual teams etc...) and you will probably be positively surprised.

What do you think ?