Social Mythbusters

Misconceptions and lessons learned re: Social Business Louis Richardson IBM Social Business Evangelist With credit to Jon Mell (IBM) for his original views on many of these topics Social

Social is new

Social is new
We’ve always communicated, shared ideas and content, and worked in groups…it’s just we are now doing it more effectively

Social is a waste of time

Social is a waste of time
It addresses real business problems and yields real business results
You're not going to convince people through argument
It’s best to put it in front of people...naysayers often become the most vocal champion

Social will get out of control

Conrad Gessner warns of "confusion and harm" in the modern world caused by the overabundance of data

Conrad Gessner warns of "confusion and harm" in the modern world caused by the overabundance of data
He was talking about too many books in 1550

You can prove if social will work in your organization with a pilot

You can prove if social will work in your organization with a pilot
Pilots are usually targeted at technology…social is about people and culture
Pilots are usually “experimental”
Pilots usually deal with a group of business people who already know and work closely with each other

People are really nice, want to work extra hard, and want to share all their knowledge with others

People are really nice, want to work extra hard, and want to share all their knowledge with others
Social has to have value for the individual
It needs to address a pain they have and help them in their daily work efforts

Email is bad

Email is bad
Email is a really good notification system
Email doesn’t kill productivity. People kill productivity. It’s just that they often use email to do it.

Status updates are trivial and useless

Status updates are trivial and useless
Facebook once forced us to use "Louis Richardson is"...now they ask "What's on your mind?"
Twitter has "what are you doing?"...these are often the low value tweets…or produce knowledge accident
Status updates are purposefully used to ask questions and find experts

You can know what your people want and need in a social solution…and how they are going to use it

You can know what your people want and need in a social solution…and how they are going to use it People are amazing, creative and inventive…and unpredictable

All of this social data is just a bunch of noise

All of this social data is just a bunch of noise
It is a lot of data, but data can be very valuable in business.
The key is the noise to signal ratio...separating the valuable from the less useful

When dealing with social business, adoption is the measure of success

When dealing with social business, adoption is the measure of success
Adoption as a measure is pointless
It's like measuring the productivity of your company by how many emails are sent
What you want to measure is business outcomes.

So… Social is not new. Nor is it a waste of time. Trying to control it is counterproductive. Most social pilots won’t deliver. People are selfish. Email isn’t bad. Neither are status updates. Your people are unpredictable. The social data is valuable. Measuring adoption is futile.

Questions? Comments? Other myths?

Thank you! Louis Richardson [email_address] Twitter: inter_vivos about.me/louisrichardson Jon Mell [email_address] Twitter: jonmell

http://smarterbusinessdk.wordpress.com	193
http://www.narominded.com	98
http://paper.li	77
http://connections.intern.topdanmark.dk	68
http://creativitycrisis.com	27
https://inside.bluekiwi.net	15
http://connections.e-office.com	13
http://a0.twimg.com	12
http://feeds.feedburner.com	9
http://www.netvibes.com	5
http://us-w1.rockmelt.com	3
http://webmail15.orange.fr	1
http://webmail1g.orange.fr	1
https://www-304.ibm.com	1

Social Mythbusters

by Louis Richardson on Oct 11, 2011

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

14 Embeds 523

Statistics

Social Mythbusters — Presentation Transcript