Corporate Social Media Backlash: The Virtual Firewall

On February 9, 2010, In Biz, By Tac Anderson

In December I predicted that over the next 5 years we would see intranets begin to integrate with social networks. I’ve seen some signs recently that this might take longer than I anticipated (but trust me it will happen).

Tora! Tora! Tora! - BREAK!The intranet is a metaphor for corporate control.

Intranets are secure networks of communication. Employees can safely share information, trusting that it won’t find its way out into untrustworthy hands. With the exception of email sent outside the network almost all communication stays behind the firewall. The firewall works both ways to keep information in and information out. Intranets are siloed and, as they exist today, make it difficult to share information across a company. Just over 10 years ago the Cluetrain Manifesto hypothesized:

the cluetrain manifesto

Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It’s going to cause real pain to tear those walls down. But the result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in.

Social media tools have shown an incredible ability to tear down those walls. This has caused a lot of pain and consternation among executives. My last post covered a disturbing email I received from a friend of mine in the financial sector that was being forced to delete their LinkedIn profile because it was considered an individual, professional website.

On the WE Studio D Thinkers and Doers blog I also posted about Forrester forcing all of their employees to shut down their personal blogs if they overlapped with their area of focus at Forrester and would only be allowed to blog about that topic on the forthcoming Forrester blog.

What we are witnessing is the corporate extension of the “firewall” into social media. While this is not an actual firewall it is the way companies are trying to control what would normally happen within or through their firewall.

Shel Holtz has started the Stop Blocking blog to address the problems employees face when their employers flex their firewalls to stop employees from accessing social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. With the ever increasing capabilities to access these sites via mobile phone that just seems ridiculous. You can’t stop my smart phone, even if I am at work.

All of this seems like a sad attempt to stop the inevitable. Why not work with your employees to reach a win-win instead of trying to stifle them? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Tagged with: • • • • • • • •
 
View Comments Comments
Leave A Response

Two Interviews About Social Media, SEO, Lifestreaming and Twitter Measurement

On November 21, 2009, In Comm, By Tac Anderson

I was recently interviewed for two podcasts. I’ve been interviewed before but these two were especially cool for me. I used to Listen to the Mr SEO podcast years ago, before the company changed hands and relocated locally here in Seattle. And For Immediate Release is probably the podcast I’ve been subscribed to the longest (they just recently passed episode 500). I’ve embedded both players here for your convenience.

A few weeks ago I was interviewed on the Mr. SEO Business Net Marketing show.

Everyone has heard about Twitter and Social Media, but how do you use them effectively in marketing? In this episode we’ll uncover some very clever uses of being social, how to get started, and more importantly how to turn your efforts into measurable and profitable undertakings that also build customer loyalty.

And then on Friday I was interviewed by Shel Holtz as part of the For Immediate Release interview series.

Tac Anderson, in his role of Director of Social Media for the PR agency Waggener Edstrom, led an effort to adopt the lifestreaming tool, Posterous, as a communication channel for the launch of Microsoft’s retail stores. In this FIR Interview, co-host Shel Holtz explores with Tac the uses to which Microsoft is putting Posterous and how the results are being assessed. Tac also talks about Twendz Pro, the new real-time monitoring service launched recently by Waggener Edstrom.

via forimmediaterelease.biz
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: • • • •
 
View Comments Comments
Leave A Response

Transparency isn’t about creating trust it’s about creating better content.

On May 6, 2009, In Biz, By Tac Anderson

Transparency isn’t about creating trust it’s about creating better content.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the issue of transparency. Partly because I’m reading Shel Holtz great book, Tactical Transparency. This is a very *meaty* book. It’s taking me a while to read because I end up stopping every few pages to chew on the ramifications of what I just read.But today I had a thought about transparency that put things in a different light.

What if transparency isn’t about creating trust it’s about creating better content?

Transparency does not create trust. It just doesn’t. *Unless* you are trustworthy.

A well polished, media trained executive, speaking to his talking points at a press conference makes horrible content. A mumbling engineer speaking into his shoes, but passionately, about how and why he created their new product makes for much better content.

Apple is probably the most controlling, closed consumer tech companies out there. They can rip off the Beatles and sue bloggers and no one says a word. Why? Apple products make for great content. Steve Jobs keynotes make for great content.

Twitter has continued to grow despite starting off with one of the the worst Web user experience since the 1990’s. Granted it’s better now but it’s still not *great*. Why do we put up with it? Because the possibilities of this new category, microblogging, that they created makes for great content. The conversations we have there make for great content.

Now before the transparency evangelist jump all over me, I still believe that transparency is an important factor of trust but if it doesn’t make for great content, no one will care. Don’t believe me? Let me ask you one question? How many Fortune 1,000 company blogs do you read?

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: • • • • •
 
View Comments Comments
Leave A Response

Using Social Networking Sites For Internal Communications

On April 25, 2009, In Biz, By Tac Anderson

Now that I’m leaving HP, they are going to delete my neglected HP blog (unless I find someone at HP who wants to take it over). So there are a couple of posts I wanted to rescue from there and bring over here. Originally posted 7/29/08

Using Social Networking Sites For Internal Communications

HP Facebook employee targeted adThis a two in one blog post. The example I am about to share shows both the importance of allowing your employees access to social networking sites and it shows how social networks can be used for internal employee communications.

I have been a long term listener to Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson’s For Immediate Release podcast and a reoccurring theme on their podcast for years now is how social networks like Facebook could eventually replace/supplement corporate intranets.

While some smaller companies are able to experiment with this, I personally never foresee a time where large enterprises will scrap their intranets. However, I do see the need for enterprises to use social networks as a supplement to their employee communication.

HP has a program called HP Demo Days. The basic gist of the program is that twice a year (After Thanksgiving and Back to School) employees are encouraged to signup and go to local retail locations where they answer customer questions about HP products.

I think this is a great program for a few reasons:

A) It helps HP sell more product during key shopping seasons
B) More importantly it helps HP employees connect with real customers, not filtered through layers of research.

Don’t close yourself off to innovation

Jill Weeks is responsible for getting the word out about the program and getting people signed up.  Fortunately HP is not one of those companies that restrict Internet usage at work or blocks social networking sites.  After spending some time on Facebook Jill noticed how targeted the ads were that she was seeing.

It was these targeted ads that got Jill wondering just how specific you could get.  She contacted Facebook and found out that you could indeed get as specific as targeting people by their place of employment.

Internal communications from the outside in

One of the things that interested Jill in using Facebook is the rise in teleworkers.

“With so many people working remotely from home we’re seeing that employees are already using social networks to communicate with fellow employees.”

Facebook hadn’t tried this anything like this before and expressed some concern to Jill that they couldn’t guarantee who saw the ad.  Basically anyone in the US who puts down that they are currently an HP employee will see the ad. This was of little concern to Jill since the information being shared isn’t privileged and the landing page to the ad is a secured signup page.

Building on the campaign, building a community

When I first saw the ad, I contacted Jill about the program (honestly I kind of geeked out about it). I think it’s a great use case.  The only recommendation I had for Jill was to build a group page on Facebook and encourage employees to sign up and invite their fellow employees to join.

The results have been modest so far but so has the expense.  Facebook ads are cheep and are pay-per-click. The Facebook group was free and takes minimal time to set up.  The important thing to remember about social media is that the best results are usually realized after the first year.  It usually takes 6-12 months to gain traction and prove that this isn’t just a fly by night campaign.

It will be interesting to see the effects of these efforts with each new Demo Days. I’m willing to bet that each year gets progressively better, assuming that HP continues to invest the minimal time and budget into this.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: • • • •
 
View Comments Comments
Leave A Response
Go To Top »

Bad Behavior has blocked 6067 access attempts in the last 7 days.