Social Media at Work - stop blocking please...

Today I spoke at the e-Recruitment day of Vacature, the leading HR/Recruitment Magazine here in Belgium.

The keynote was by Joeri Van den Bergh, co-founder of "Generation Y " and expert at InSites Consulting, who spoke about findings from his book "How cool brands stay hot".

Next was Stephanie Radochitzki who gave some very interesting insights on the use of mobile devices in Belgium and the impact these have in communications and news consumption.

See my tweets during the conference by searching for #erd on Twitter.

My main topics, coincidently or not, are completely (and better) explained in this video which I found today.

It was made on behalf of Melcrum by Red Sky Vision and they did a terrific job interviewing specialists from all over the world (including @jangles)

Social Media @ Work from Red Sky Vision on Vimeo.

In short, I strongly believe in the following points when it comes down to using social media within the enterprise:

• don't block: there is no use in blocking internet and social media access in the company. It all boils down to trusting your employees and helping them use the tools in a correct context. Be brave and sign the petition here.
• when you recruit through social media - make absolutely sure you're reflecting reality on the job... Transparency is key.
• social media communications is not a "golden bullet" - it builds upon, enhances and supports a full scope - on and offline - communications plan.

It was great meeting HR professionals this afternoon and am sure most of you will be able to learn and use the video clip about social media at work.

What do you think ? Let me know !

PS: the event was moderated by Belgium's top TV journalists Indra Dewitte - if you're reading this Indra, please stop lurking on Twitter and engage - we will all profit from your insights... ;-)

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 ?

Speaking about ROI of Social Media at Brussels Conference

On Tuesday, September 14 I'll be speaking at Melcrum's "Social Media and Internal Communications Conference" in Brussels.

My keynote will be around the return on investment of social media, more specifically when applied for internal communications and collaboration.

At the hand of our own case study at the Van Marcke Group I'll cover how to define & measure social media ROI for the enterprise.

Other speakers of the day include:

• ex IBM colleagues Yves van Seters, IBM Task Leader for Social Media and  Vanessa Vyncke, Employee & Executive Communications. They talk about embedding social media into day to day business.
• Louise Denver, Director Corporate Affairs & Communications, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
• Louise McGregor, Manager Web Expert Centre, Corporate Communications ING Group
• Sonia Carter, Senior Manager - Online, AXA UK
• Neil Atkinson, Director - Global Communication Channels, Unilever
• Russell Pearson, Social Media Strategist

You can find all the details of the conference and the workshop I'll give on the second day - 15th of September on the conference website.

If you wish to join the conference, let me know. I have secured a 10% reduction for my readers. Just send me an email with your name. Hope to see you there.

Also, if you would be interested to join an exclusive workshop around using social media for crisis communications in the October/November timeframe (also in Brussels) please let me know.

I am planning this with a top worldwide specialist in risk management and crisis management and we're limiting the amount of participants at 20 people. So if you would like to learn how to integrate social media into your crisis planning, don't miss this one and send me an email.