John’s posterous

Modern-day parents typically struggle to wean themselves from intense, daily engagement with their college-age children, even as the children struggle to establish themselves as independent young adults, Savage said.

Blogging as Management, not Marketing

4:59 PM Wednesday August 26, 2009
by Becky Bermont

Tags:Communication, Leadership, Social media

Most "how-to" guides for company blogging focus on marketing and PR objectives: positioning your organization as a thought leader, or using it as a "free" channel to get company news out there. We have a blog like this at our RISD, but we also have another, behind-the-firewall blog that is used for management, not marketing.

The blog covers vast territory, from the intellectual to the mundane. Most fundamentally, though, it is a place to have an ongoing conversation about the thing we all share — RISD — in ways that don't necessarily come up in the course of a normal workday. Anyone with a RISD ID — students, faculty, and staff — can join the discussion; we can comment to posts and announcements, request that a topic be initiated, and even (on Tuesdays) comment anonymously. None of the comments are moderated before they are posted, though all are "community policed" with the following rules:

Mom's Guideline: Please refrain from swearing and other behavior that might make your mother (or father, or guardian) disappointed in you.

Vegas Guideline: What happens in two.risd, stays in two.risd.

Catchup Guideline: Start from the very beginning of the posts/comments to best acclimate yourself before posting.

Lawyer's Guideline: Everything posted on two.risd needs to comply with the law.

More than a year into this experiment, several of its lessons are now apparent:

1. The medium has meaning. Compared with many companies — where it's not uncommon to use email to ask a casual question of someone down the hall — RISD has a highly non-digital culture. Today, wariness still abounds at the idea of sharing honest opinions in a digital forum — never mind one moderated by the President. It reminds me of a good conversation I had with Gentry Underwood, who heads IDEO's Knowledge Sharing practice, about how any internal communication vehicle must be designed to be culturally sensitive — the most advanced isn't necessarily the best, especially when trying to get people to open up. At this point the blog is like any other social media — it has few participants compared with the many who are onlookers to the dialogue.

Get ready for the water cooler to be on display. For the leaders of an organization, the blog provides us instant feedback on management decisions and direction. Some of the whispers of private conversations and reactions are brought out into the open for all to see. Because the feedback channel is instant and visible, it keeps the community's reaction to decisions present in the minds of decision-makers. "What will happen on the blog?" becomes meeting shorthand for "What will the reaction be?"

When it was first launched, much of managers' anxiety about this new communication channel focused on the blog's unmoderated nature — the fact that anyone in the community can post without passing through a filter. But after more than a year, even in a culture that doesn't shy away from conflict, we can count on one hand the number of inappropriate comments that have violated our rules and needed to be pulled down. Controversial, pointed, and opinionated? Often. But actually breaking the "rules?" Rarely. It seems we learn over and over with new communication channels that human behavior is strikingly constant. People who misbehave are the exception rather than the rule, no matter the medium.

Adding dimensions to working relationships. The blog has added dimensions to my relationships with colleagues, revealing opinions that may not otherwise have a forum to come out. In some cases, people are much more outspoken on the blog than they are "in life."

This has also happened on an institutional level. For managers, the questions arise on the blog make it clear where there is clarity and where clarity is lacking. Usually the blog can't create clarity on complex management decisions, but it does serve as a catalyst for further offline explanation, either in conversation or in a more formal setting, like a campus-wide meeting. Conversely, often the contents of a campus-wide meeting are posted on the blog for further discussion. The on and offline worlds complement each other to get the word out to a diverse community, and to make it understood.

Communication hierarchies are flattened. Unlike the traditional management chain, the blog offers open and equal access to people in all parts of our organization. Because those who are most vocal on the blog may not be those in positions of authority, the perspective of the overall conversation looks different than communication that happens through the usual channels. It is more multifaceted, bringing the widely varying experience of students, faculty, and staff directly into the conversation, and exposing their different vantage points. Yet it is imperative to the make the distinction between communication hierarchies (which are flattened) and actual decision-making powers (which remain intact). In order for the blog to work, the premise that it is for providing input — and not making decisions — has to be made fundamentally clear.

We're curious how others' experiments with management-by-blogging have gone. What does your organization do?

Best Practices for Corporate Twittering

by Tom Humbarger on 08/28/2009 16:57   4 comments , 2357 views
Categories: Policy & Guidelines, Social Networks
Tags: twitter, best practices

Many companies want to start using Twitter to promote their brand and business, but don’t really know where to start.  As most companies are starting to realize, Twitter is a great way to reinforce your brand, share news and important information, gather feedback , advertise and most importantly, start a dialogue with your customers and prospects – and the only cost is the time of the people involved with managing the Twitter feed.

Here is a short list of best practices for corporate Twittering that I compiled for one of my clients.  Most small-to-medium businesses should be able to achieve results with a couple of hours of effort per week.

Getting Started

• Pick a Twitter name that matches your company name or alternatively a name that includes your company name such as @companyteam
• Build up a level of tweets so other users will see you as credible and relevant – the minimum number of tweets that you should accumulate before you start promoting your account is somewhere in the 50 to 100 range  (most users will ignore you if you have few tweets or haven’t been tweeting for very long)
• Fill out your profile completely including a URL as most people will not follow anyone with an incomplete profile
• Create a customized Twitter homepage (that matches your corporate brand as much as possible) to provide additional information about your company and products

Getting your message out

• Try to tweet 5 to 8 times per day, and you should space them out throughout the day if possible
• Only 20% or so of your tweets should be related to your company or include a marketing or ‘advertising’ message – the others should be tweets about related topics that provide value to your followers or show a more human side of your company; people will stop paying attention to you if you use Twitter exclusively for self-promotion
• Most of your tweets should contain a link to a website, blog post, article, etc. – these  are the types of tweets will establish your Twitter account as being a source of great content and worthy of being followed back
• Use HootSuite’s to schedule your tweets and to track your tweet clickthrus and their Hootlet app to easily tweet the URLs of content at the source – Hootsuite also lets you include multiple users on the same account which can help to spread out the Twitter workload

Following people

• Use one or more of the Twitter directories (WeFollow or Twellow) to locate potential users to follow based on their interests and geography
• Follow anyone who mentions your company or keywords that important for your business
• Periodically do a Twitter search on your company name or click on @yourname from right panel to see who is re-tweeting you or mentioning your name
• @reply people to thank people or to just reach out to them
• RT or re-tweet posts that you think are worthy – generally these people will notice and start following you
• You don’t want to grow your Twitter following too quickly – steady growth is better and a goal of growing 100 to 200 per month is a good start for most businesses

And finally as noted in The Guide to Corporate Twittering, you should:

• Be honest
• Be responsive and human
• Be nice

Last night, I was reading Wayne Dyer’s book, “Excuses Begone!,” and came across a statement that really resonated with me. “We don’t always want to undertake the necessary steps to create the life we desire.”

Many times, there are limits as to how far we’ll go to achieve success in our lives and businesses. Maybe we don’t want to move, or give up a certain type of lifestyle. Maybe we don’t want to have to bootstrap our new business idea and drop some of the luxuries we enjoy on a daily basis, like cable television or expensive cell phone plans, or maybe we don’t want to have to do things we’re uncomfortable doing, like promoting our businesses and “putting ourselves out there.”

We say we want to “do everything” to see our businesses succeed, but we don’t stop to think about the sacrifices we might need to make along the way in order to reach our destination.

In his book, Dyer suggests making a list entitled “All the Things I’m Unwilling to Do in Order to Live the Life That I Intend to Live,” with the ultimate goal being to have a blank “unwillingness sheet.” We have to be willing to stretch our comfort zones and do things we’ve never done before, if we ever hope to succeed. So, how do you keep from getting in your own way?

Have a Blank “Unwillingness Sheet”

Having a blank “unwillingness sheet” doesn’t mean being willing to do anything unethical or illegal, but it does mean making sacrifices and pushing yourself. List all the things that you’re afraid to do, and then learn to embrace them and work through them. Write down the things that are standing in your way and then figure out how you can overcome them.

Put an End to All Limiting Thoughts and Beliefs

Many times, we sell ourselves short by imposing ceilings on our abilities, our resources and our goals. We tell ourselves we’re not smart enough or successful enough or connected enough to succeed, and most times, we believe it. In his book, Dyer quotes Lao-tzu: “In order to eliminate the negative influences, simply ignore them.”

I can think of relevant example of this that happened just yesterday. I’m in the middle of launching a new branch off my business and was thinking of contacting someone who might be able to help me. I wrote the person’s name on a list, along with a few others who might be able to help, but this person was the next in line to be contacted. Immediately, my limiting thoughts started trying to sabotage my efforts. “This person is too busy, too successful. She’ll probably laugh in my face. After all, I bet she gets paid to do what I’m going to ask her to do for free.” I scratched her name off the list. My next thought, “Do you want to make this a success or not?” That was followed by, “What’s the worst she can say? No? I have nothing to lose by simply asking.” I didn’t give it another thought. I composed a very brief and concise message asking her to help me. Within five or ten minutes, she had replied with an emphatic “Yes!”

A roadblock presented itself, and in the past, I would have easily let it stop me, but this time, I was serious. My “unwillingness sheet” is empty, and I’ve decided to stop thinking bad thoughts about this endeavor entirely. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Don’t worry about what others will think of you. As Dyer says, “What you think of me is none of my business.” That’s an easy way of thinking of it and shutting down the limiting thought.

Find a Way to Make it Work

Dyer also shares a  great quote from Virginia Woolf:  “Arrange whatever pieces come your way.” Things are not going to always go well, or in your favor. Inevitably, there will be some challenges and surprises. Maybe some things will not work out as anticipated, so you’ll have to be ready to make adjustments. It’s a work in progress. Just “arrange the pieces” and keep moving.

Hold on to Your Vision

“Hold it in your mind.” This final quote isn’t from “Excuses Begone!,” but another Dyer book called “Write It Down, Make It Happen.” You have to keep the vision for your business and its ultimate success in your mind until you finally reach it. Stay connected to why you want to do this, how you intend to accomplish it, and what things will look like when you get there.

Take a look at where you are in your life and business. Are things moving towards your goals? Are you doing things with intention and focus, purposefully moving where you want to go? It’s hard to see it, but sometimes, we get in our own way. We have to stop and think about what it is that we’re really willing to do to see our vision into existence.

Have there been times when you’ve gotten in your own way? How did you overcome limiting beliefs and roadblocks to move one step closer to achieving your goals?

Image from Flickr by MobilFunk7