An interesting phenomena happened again the other day and while it's happened before, the intensity of the reaction this time made me smile... and think about an important feature of social media: Accountability.

A person on LinkedIn sent a spam message to all his contacts including me. The reaction was swift and severe. A great number of contacts sent him back varying degrees of negative feedback, some of it rather emotionally charged. As an added bonus, in this case, because some of the replying people copied everyone who received the original message, the "dope-slap" was public.

I think everyone will agree that spam is extremely antisocial and relies heavily on anonymity for its success. Since social media is anything but anonymous, participants must be accountable for their blog posts, emails, tweets and other public comments. If they are not behaving in a "social" way, they will find out very quickly.

So two important contributions result from the use of social media. First, good old spam will be severly curtailed and secondly, people wil be taught social behavior regardless of whether they come into the space knowing it ahead of time.

Businesses and individuals are all seeking innovative ways to leverage social media for currency, whether actual revenue or goodwill. They see social media as a robust way to add reach and richness to their marketing efforts; however, what is less obvious is how to do it?

How to effectively apply social technology to reach specific markets of conversations and subsequently create the exchange has become the Holy Grail of social media as a process.

For companies to arrive at a more competitive, more advantageous position the route begins by acquiring essential knowledge leading to innovative practices that  result in conversational currency. To arrive at your destination you first need to construct a map: A series of initiatives and actions aimed at accelerating your progress towards achieving our ultimate goal. Essential knowledge must first be acquired and translated into a strategic plan that will allow you to set the proper course for your journey.

Most businesses are more focused on the cost and results than gaining an understanding of the process of social media.  But in order to effectively leverage social media to produce the intended results it is vitally important to “learn” the art and science of conversations in order to effectively apply the methods of creating conversational currency.  Think of this investment in education as a “knowledge transfer process” that may initially require time and money to accomplish but the value it creates far exceeds the cost. The results of effectively enabling individuals and businesses  to gain from this transfer of knowledge ultimately will be reflected in the future through significant savings in time and effort. In other words, an investment in essential knowledge leads directly to an increase in overall productivity. Finding the Holy Grail of conversational currency requires safe passage through the hallowed grounds of essential knowledge. No matter what your learning to leverage and give by actively participating in conversations with your markets, it is knowledge that fuels the result.

Each day more businesses are awakening to the power of the social web and there is one thing separating the successful from the unsuccessful: Knowledge. Without knowledge a business can quickly get lost in the “sea of social technology” losing precious time doing unproductive activities without achieving a desired result.  Money is a derivative of knowledge. The lack of knowledge is a derivative of cost.

Social Media Funnels Knowledge

The landscape of social media is changing daily. The speed of change creates new dynamics, new knowledge and disruption for those that don’t “know”. Keeping track of these changes requires an investment in time and the application of knowledge.  Time cost money. Without gaining the required knowledge you lose time and productivity. Gaining and internalizing “knowledge” is the means for gaining time and  improving productivity.  Leveraging time and productivity is what produces results.

An individual or business can save time and money by using “knowledge resources”. A knowledge resource is someone or an organization that can either transfer the knowledge of “how to create results from social media” to your internal resources.  The other alternative is to partner with knowledge resources that can facilitate your pursuit of social currency on your behalf.  However allowing an outside knowledge resource to facilitate the required actions for you means you never internalize or own the knowledge.  So, which is better then to outsource or to own?

Ownership enables you to become self sufficient. Outsourcing makes you co-dependent. Co-dependency is problematic: It results in a dysfunctional enterprise. In order to run a functional business you must learn to gain, leverage, create and own knowledge. Using social media to achieve results is a paradigm shift for all of us. Understanding that social media functions as a vast reservoir of information about your markets, your customers, your employees is important. Understanding how to funnel and filter that information into essential knowledge is the key to your success. Monitoring the transitions yet to come is crucial to meeting the challenges these sea changes threaten to have upon your business.

The good news is that you can learn how to ride the wave rather than drown. By valuing the process of learning you can discover innovative ways to generate conversational currency. An old proverb teaches that people perish due to a lack of knowledge. Your company can either prosper or perish. What produces results? Knowledge. Got it? No, then get it! The choice is yours.

A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. Strategy is different from tactics.

Every business, whether planned or not, has and acts on a strategy to both engage in market opportunities and to provide offerings.   The process and thinking about strategy has changed overtime as the market conditions change.

When market conditions change such changes can turn old strategies on their head and subsequently a business finds that what they were doing in the past is no longer valid and they begin to lose market share.

Are The Market Conditions Changing?

Have you watched the headlines?  Everywhere we turn we can see market disruption.  This is especially true within the field of media, the advertising field, our entire economic market has changed and in case you haven’t noticed the market of conversations is fueling disruption in every market.  For companies to adapt to these changes they must pursue alternative strategies.  However the pursuit of alternative strategies means that everything changes including  how your new strategy is formed.

Strategy 2.0 is a new process that is required to create new plans of action in order to stay in the game and thrive.  The marketplace is at war for consumer attention and spending.  The war is not fought with traditional tactics rather it is fought using methods of engaging markets, the conversation.

In his book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, (1999) Doc Searls speaks to the point that “markets are conversations.”  He supports this thesis with a thorough discussion on how the growth and widespread use of the Internet is facilitating conversations that defy the traditional boundaries of corporations and countries. What was once a prophecy has now become a fact – and at an unprecedented rate of speed. This movement has not only influenced existing markets and how consumers engage in transactions, it has created new markets and new methods of exchange.

Searls notes that three things happen in all “natural” markets: transaction, conversation and relationship. The conventional thinking of almost all corporate cultures is that they understand transaction excessively – focusing intensely on the ultimate result: The “bottom line.”  Thus, their understanding of the value of genuine conversations and healthy relationships is woefully deficient.  Corporate America rationalizes almost all her decisions in terms of transactional value alone. This mindset will not continue to be successful in the new economy.

Cycles of  Strategic Transformation

According to Doc Searls, the acceleration of conversations creates cycles of transformation. These cycles have blazed the trail to a new frontier for commerce: Relationship. The networked marketplace can only be improved upon and enlarged through relationships. Those who are grasping this recognize the opportunity to expand a current market and/or lead to the creation of a new one.  How does this happen? It begins with a conversation.

Strategy 2.0 is about applying knowledge of this dynamic marketplace and  implementing a  plan to maximize your competitiveness in the marketplace of conversations.  Strategy 2.0 is about anticipating the evolution of your intended strategy into an emerging strategy whose cycle of transformation doesn’t occur at a tidy annual corporate planning retreat; rather, it is an ongoing, everyday occurrence.

Strategy 2.0 doesn’t wait for quarterly and annual reports to be compiled; it is being discussed and formed among the daily conversations between employees and customers. But Strategy 2.0 is not only about the use of an advancing technology. Actually, it’s more basic than that.  Strategy 2.0 begins and ends as a conversation.  Get it?

My brain isn’t always the sharpest and it takes time for me to grasp information and its relative meaning.  Words carry lots of meaning and unless we really “read and listen to comprehend” we can miss the true value of someone’s work. If you’ve ever listen to or read something from someone smarter than you then you know what I mean.

Three years ago I read Doc Searls work and in particular The Cluetrain Manifesto.  The theme of the Cluetrain is “Markets are Conversations” and  the book discussed how the internet was propagating conversations at rates never before experienced and subsequently creating and influencing markets.

Recently I read The Cluetrain Manifesto yet again for the fourth time.  This time I think my brain cells finally connected and I saw exactly how the acceleration of conversations create cycles of transformation that  lead to expansion of existing  or creation of brand new markets.  All generated from conversations.

Cycles of Transformation

Conversations are filled with information which is shared with others.  The internet, in its current stage, enables the propagation of conversations from one to one to millions at the click of a mouse.  The acceleration of conversations at rates beyond past experiences facilitates the transformation of information into knowledge.   Subsequently a few people discern the knowledge gained and move to the creation of innovation in product, service and delivery (marketing, service and reach).

From the creation of innovative approaches in product, service and delivery market leaders create currency.  Currency comes in many different forms.  Time, productivity and monetization of both create new capital.  Subsequently the introduction of new innovation gets disseminated as information contained in conversations which now becomes known to the masses thanks to the internet.

At each and every point in the dissemination process, content can be vetted by the community of peers, colleagues, and other participants.   This is extremely important because content that survived extreme vetting becomes a factual addition to the marketplace of knowledge.  This is the highest order and the most valuable outcome of the social media exchange.  Every notice how valuable conversations are those that facilitate the creation of new value and subsequently are passed on to ultimately create innovation that attracts the masses?   Microsoft, IBM, Google, Facebook, Linkedin all the Fortune 500 and every business born on the landscape of commerce was born out of a conversation.  Those that survive are those that continue the conversation aiming at increasing value through innovative developments that the market wants or consumes.

The value of social media is relative to the cycle of  social media transformation that is vetted through the marketplace of peers. Past industries were started, enabled and created by conversations that led to innovation.  Consider a few examples:

1. Manufacturing innovations that fueled production of products that consumers wanted. (examine any product currently manufactured)
2. Service innovations that helped organizations and consumers improve productivty. (examine any service you use and consider its value)
3. Technological innovation that fuels productivity, communications and creativity. (examine Google, IBM, Microsoft, Wireless, Internet, Broadcasting etc etc.)

In each case billions of new capital and currency was created.

Now we are witnessing conversations from the marketplace that confirm that the cycles illustrated are indeed the process of transformation aimed at creation of new value. The difference between today and yesterday is the rate of change created by and through the conversations propagated through social media.

Consider recent stories about KFC and Oprah, Target & Non Profits and the how Twitter is helping local businesses improve sales.  You don’t have to look too far to see other examples and you can bet we’ll see a lot more who understand this cycle, whether consciously or not, and apply the thinking to create new markets or serving existing ones better.  Those that serve or create markets best win. Did I get it?

What say you?

The phenomenon of social media is producing results.  People are empowered with options related to how they accept, deny, share, and pursue information.  Social Media has become the “magnate” of attraction to individuals, businesses and institutions.

It is no longer sufficient to speak at people solely through traditional means; they must be engaged in conversation and attracted into a relationship.  There is no institution which can avoid these new conditions and to deny the influence is to deny people’s need and right to communicate.

The rate of conversations relative to the impact and implications of social media are accelerating.  Consider the trends illustrated in the Google trends graph in this post.  In less than three years there has been over a 300% increase in Google searches for the term social media.  Can you find another subject matter on Google that has sustained this rate of acceleration?  Even if you could there is no denying that the “pull” of social media is in hyper speed with accelerated rates fueling the interest and curiosity in 2009.

What Does A Search Imply?

Searches imply an awareness, an interest and desire to learn and understand something. When we search we’re looking for something or somebody.  The frequency of a term on Google implies interest, influence and when the rate of searches for a certain term increases it implies relevance to people’s interest and desire to learn about something or someone. The rate at which things change is more important than the change itself. A Bank does not care about money – A bank only cares about the rate of change in money – it’s called “interest”. Is the term “interest” the same for money as it is for human search behavior? “Is the presence of the concept of “interest” therefore the basis of a currency?”

Interest on money is supposed to compensate the lender for “risk”.  When money devalues, there is a negative “interest” but can there ever be a negative risk? Of course not. The reason we need to print more money is because negative risk cannot exist. Therefore, such currency is inadequate.  Social currency on the other hand can manage negative interest rates with ease and therefore may act as a superior currency

Based on the data illustrated in the above graph one may conclude that the relevance, interest and desire to learn more about social media is accelerating.  The acceleration also aligns itself with the growth rate of social networks and use of social media. So again the phenomenon of social media is “pulling” attention (interest) to the medium and means.  One may conclude that a new paradigm is shaping if not creating the new means for human interaction.

Statistically speaking the implications illustrated in the graph above indicated a “systemic change”.  A systemic change happens when data suggest a process has or is out of “control” and no longer stable.  Predictions become difficult because the “process data” shows significant changes.  Changes to a process are reflected in the inputs: people, methods, machines and influences.  When inputs change a process changes and subsequently the results change as well.

What Results Will Change?

Personal and professional results vary based on an aim.  If the aim is to learn something then the data suggest social media is fueling learning.  If the aim is money then in order to gain more money one must be where their market, their audience is conversing.

People are suppliers and consumers of currency.  When conversations propagate the currency of the conversation accelerates. Propagation can refer to reproduction, and other forms of multiplication or increase.  Conversations, and the propagation of conversations, are the fuel which creates value for others if the conversations adds value.  Every kind of result is influenced by the currency of a conversation, whether factual or not.

If you want to improve a result then you must engage in the conversations that impact your results.  Changing a result starts with a conversation that perpetuates the needed changes. Let’s see how well the currency of this conversation, if it adds value, gets propagated. The measures are reflected in the references to this post through tweets, retweets and diggs otherwise referred to as passing along ( a process) the social currency (the value) contained in this conversation.

If the value of this conversation is high enough then it will be passed one to one to millions.  Let’s see what happens to this one.  The more it gets passed along the greater the attention (interest) becomes to the content .  The content then becomes vetted as valuable to the marketplace of conversations and it becomes an exchange of knowledge currency that may create innovation for someone.

What say you?

People follow people who have more contacts, followers, blog post and overall activity on the web. The web provides numerous data points to indicate a persons attractiveness to potential followers.

From Tweet analyzer, Adage Power 150, Twitter Score, Google rank, Page Rank, Technocrati and the list of different metrics goes on and one. One must ask themselves whether the current scoreboards are any indication of true leadership or just an indication of activity.

The word follow implies : to go, proceed, or come after pursue, to walk or proceed along, to accept as authority, to pursue in an effort to overtake and to seek to attain. The pull of social media is currently designed around “following” people, brands and products that get our attention. Looking at the rate of change we can surmise how different external events may affect social media data and the betting markets of conversations that create influence.

The rate of change is nano seconds. The current metrics are constantly changing because most of the measures are centric to people and events that cause massive attention, gains in terms of followers and the media’s fascination with whomever is at the top of the heap at any given moment.

Do The Numbers Reflect Real leadership?

Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. Alan Keith of Genentech says “Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.

KFC and Oprah made something extraordinary happen, they caused a rush on KFC stores like never before and the media became fascinated with the event.  Ashton Kutcher made something extraordinary happen by getting the most followers on twitter in a short period of time and the media became fascinated with the event.  The extraordinary piece of each of these events and others is reflected by the “attention and attraction“of people and the media. The relative issues that gained the attention and attraction reflect the fascination with the power of social media to enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.  Even is the task is as simple as gaining peoples attention for no specific purpose or value added accomplishment.

Social media participants (individuals and brands) have a vested interest in quickly understanding the nuances of newsworthy events that develop into mainstream news stories.  However, some events still appear to impact the public very quickly – in the past month or so the newsworthiness of social media events has gained considerable traction within main stream media.   As more and more people and businesses learn how to convert social media attention into currency, that is reflected by either monetary gain or value added results,  then the power of conversations and connections will reveal the extraordinary results everyone is chasing.

Today the extraordinary events are relative to what people are learning about the power of social media. Tomorrow the extraordinary events will be driven by leaders who learn to convert the knowledge gained into innovation that fuels the exchange of social currency, an exchange of value that creates the unimaginable. Those whom learn the fastest will lead the market and set the bar as to what can be accomplished beyond gaining followers and getting the attention of the day.

You can either be blinded by the buzz and follow the crowd nowhere or you can step back and see what is the real opportunity and lead. Get it?

What say you?

I received a call from the local news television station asking to interview me concerning the recent Twitter campaign initiated between Oprah and KFC.  Oprah put out and offer to her twitter followers and to her web site visitors that offered a coupon, printed from her site, in which participants would get a free two piece chicken lunch with two side dishes, no drink.  The campaign started on May 5 and ends May 19th.

The second day of the campaign showed KFC's in Chicago and New York running out of chicken to serve.  My local KFC, which I visited with the news reporter, had put up a sign limiting the offer to a time period, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm. When the store manager was asked why he simply said "we can't handle the volume of people showing up wanting their free meal."  Now just imagine what was going on at the hundreds of KFC stores all over the country......a traffic spike unimaginable and unthinkable.

So How Does KFC Make Any Money?

The local reporter asked me "how does KFC make any money giving away free meals?".  This type of question is the very issue that perplexes the minds of traditional business leaders and the market at large.  How can a business make money from "free".  Now really think about it and consider the following:

1. The rush on KFC is being tweeted daily at the rate of 1,200 tweets per hour
2. Main street media is writing about this campaign everywhere
3. Broadcast news is featuring this story during the peak news hours all over the US
4. The story will bleed for months after the campaign as the media learns the results
5. The unique approach, using social media to launch such a campaign, has millions watching, conversing and waiting for the results
6. When I took my coupon, given to me by the news station, up to the counter I also ordered a drink, get it? $$$$
7. I observed almost 90% of the others doing the same when they turned in their coupon $$$$$
8. The campaign was launched during the month in which many schools will be closing for the season.  Ever heard of repeat business?
9. The "buzz" and continued "buzz" of the campaign could never be duplicated through traditional advertising means, never.
10. The cost of the two pieces of chicken and two sides was nothing compared to the value of the "pull into the local KFC"
11. KFC introduced a new version of chicken which got introduced to, who knows, many millions
12. Oprah got her name pushed out everywhere by everyone and thus got significant spikes in traffic to her web site
13. Her web site offers a lot more than coupons for a free chicken meal, get it?
14. The story ranked #5 on Twitter just three days into the campaign, do you think it got attention?
15. The "free meal" drew an attraction to an old brand that needed to build a new affinity to its audience, old and new
16. The draw created action, try our new chicken and buy a drink, oh yeah, come on back sometime and try our other meals

Do you get it yet? You should by now.  Word of mouth, creativity and social exchange and content distribution create social currency that turns into revenue. Now do you get it?
If not stay tuned for the new wave of brands creating social currency simply by leveraging conversations. Get it?  If not read the five strategic elements of social media.  Still don't get it? No, oh well I tried.

What say you?

Just yesterday, I saw a national, 30-second prime time TV commercial that invited viewers who wanted more information to “visit our YouTube channel.” 

How cool is that?  Thanks to technology and the social web, we are the media.  We have more ways to get our product messages to potential customers.  We don’t have to squeeze it all in a 30-second spot, a display ad or onto a highway billboard.  With multimedia, we don’t have to fill web pages with too much text.  Using video, audio and imagery, we can craft expanded messages and place them at no cost on sites for anyone to see and experience!

Before you start redistributing your ad budget, clue in on a key fact.  In the scenario mentioned above, the company still invested in 30 seconds of national air time.  I would’ve never known they had a YouTube channel were it not for that commercial.  And their commercial had to be creatively compelling, or I would’ve disregarded the whole thing entirely.

You still have to invest in advertising and promotions to draw a crowd.  Just because you launch a great blog or start a YouTube channel chock full of informative videos doesn’t mean the world will just happen upon them.  You must still extend invitations, and in many/most cases, you’ll have to convince potential customers it’ll be worth their while to check out what you have to say.

And you better have compelling content when the crowd shows up.  Content is always king, but there’s an even bigger, brighter spotlight on this truth online.  If you put yourself out there, you need to provide as promised. 

Here’s a suggested step-by-step for small businesses to apply these concepts.  I’ll use “blogging” as an example, but this could apply to other online endeavors as well.

1.  Start a blog and nurture it for a time.  Don’t write one blog post and immediately mass email the world to proclaim it.  Give yourself up to a month to establish a rhythm, get your groove in terms of content and make certain you’re really committed to it.  Establish a protocol (i.e. - create an editorial calendar, enlist a team of bloggers, get some topics in the queue) so you sure the content will stay fresh.  Ever seen a company blog that’s not been updated in a year?  It’s not impressive.

2.  Announce with direct communications.  Start spreading the news internally first, with employees, your existing customers, vendors and perhaps a tight list of strong potential customers.  Get your team on board and enlist them to become your word-of-mouth/click-of-mouse army.  Use your existing connections to organically grow new ones.  Make it easy for this ‘army’ to spread the news by providing them cut-and-paste links that they can quickly plug into their communications.

3.  Get connected.  Establish a presence on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Technorati—anywhere you can build community, share your content, get new ideas and field questions.  Just as you gave your blog its due time before you started telling the world about it, tackle these social media tools in the same way (if you are new to them).  Get a feel for how each of these mediums works so you create a persona and presence on them effectively.  Look into Ping.fm and Friendfeed.com as methods of updating all your profiles at once, so that this aspect of your promotions is less cumbersome and easy to manage.

4.  Get recognized.  Over time, as you establish your content as useful and viable, look into earning recognition for the hard work you’re putting in.  Winning blogging contests or getting listed on respected sites such as Alltop.com can really help boost your traffic.  Seek out the chance to contribute a guest column in a trade publication, with a nice mention of your blog. 

5.  Consider targeted advertising.  You can also jolt your traffic by investing in advertising.  Again, this should come only over time, as you’re assured that you’re providing great content for new viewers.  From Google Ads or Facebook ads to traditional placements to your targeted audiences, there are endless advertising options today, and many are relatively cost effective.  You can set budgets and timeframes very easily with online advertising outlets such as Google and Facebook.  Be sure to build in methods for measuring ROI to make sure your efforts are well-directed and worthwhile.

6.  Give it time.  Never compromise quality of content in the haste to get followers.  Blogs and YouTube pages can be created in a matter of minutes, but reputations are established over time.  You want relationships with root systems, and those don’t happen overnight.

Yes, it’s a whole new world, and we can all have a YouTube channel if we so desire.  Yet I still see the guy dressed up like a sub sandwich on the street corner a few times a week, holding a giant arrow and comically waving cars into his shops parking lot.  It's not very technological, but I surely can't help but notice him. 

When it all boils down, we all have to something to say or something to share, and we need to get attention to get an audience—offline or online.  Most of all we need to make sure what we’re saying or selling is worthwhile; that’s the best attention-grabber of all!

Thanks!

Our economy is driven by an old currency, monetary value. (Currency stores value) Money represents a value exchange, I give you dollars and cents and you give me goods or services. Businesses and individuals seek to maximize earnings, money, by producing goods and services that a market consumes. Serving the interest of the market at maximum productivity and quality insures a continuous stream of your currency, money.

Currency used to be based on a commodity such as Gold because of its rarity – but today, time is the rarity. We are only given so much of it and what we choose to do with it defines us as an entrepreneur – or not. An entrepreneur raises assets from low productivity to high productivity. A parent, teacher, doctor, engineer, are entrepreneurs in the truest sense.

Productivity is a measure of (how much stuff you can make in a given period of time) production. The more you can produce and do so with quality (in the eyes of the buyer) the higher probability that your earnings will go up. Productivity in economics refers to metrics and measures of output from production processes, per unit of input. Labor productivity, for example, is typically measured as a ratio of output per labor-hour, an input, or at least we used to think so.

What Improves Productivity?

In the industrial era productivity was driven by maximizing machines and human resources to produce more in less time. During the information era productivity was driven by the maximization of information with human resources aimed at creating new value from the information, knowledge. From industrial, information and now knowledge productivity has been and will continue to be the driver of value that creates our currency of exchange.

While we’ve witnessed different eras of “production” we have not changed the currency rather we have simply relied on the “dollar” as the (storage device) exchange for value produced. As we experience the era of knowledge fueled by technological advancements along with the convergence of a new global economy one must ask “what will the new currency be?” Certainly anyone can see that the American dollar is headed for massive devaluation and many global leaders, including our current President, are moving towards a new global currency.

The currency of productivity is time. If you could produce more in less time, whether a business or individual, what value could you create and would that value becomes your new currency? (more time available gives you more options to produce new enterprise) In order to produce more value in less time one must rely on or create new (information, information then becomes knowledge within another person in a relationship economy) knowledge.

New Knowledge then fuels innovation and (the ideation) of consumption of innovative products, services or ideas aimed at improving productivity are centric to saving time. Read that again and think about it. If you could earn or produce as much “currency” in a four day work week vs. five days would you not be creating value which everyone wants, time.

Objective: produce Time. Time has value. Time is subject to supply and demand. Time has a quantity that cannot be corrupted and a quality that is relative to a market. You need to invest time to make more of it. The best person for a job is the one who can make time more efficiently. People must be paid based on how much time they contribute to society. A teacher contributes time to society to the extent that they can increasing the productivity of thousands of students. A doctor contributes time to the extent that they can increase the quantity and quality of time for thousand of patients.

Anyone who does not increase the productivity of another person should not be paid in the new economy. On the other hand, pollution, gambling, crime, war, all decrease productivity of society and the market should be allowed to address these accordingly in the new economy.

Think about the advancements in technology over the last 25 years. Did you ever think that “email” would make you more productive? What about cell phones, the World Wide Web and now social technology surround and consume us. Knowledge is fueled by learning. Learning comes from an exchange of conversational currency. Conversational currency comes in numerous forms. Words in textual formats, spoken words in audio formats, images, video and sound are all part of our conversational currency that fuels knowledge for those seeking it. Applying knowledge with the aim of creating innovation aimed at producing more time is what will produce improved productivity.

Knowledge that fuels innovation aimed at productivity will be the driving force of a new global currency. Those who learn and apply knowledge to produce more in less time will be the winners. Those that don’t will lose. The difference is having more or less currency in the new global economy rushing towards us all.

Today social media fuels the conversation exchange. Tomorrow those who learn how to create time saving knowledge and innovation from these exchanges will be the productive ones and the value of their currency will be higher than those who don’t.

Get it? What say you?

Back when Total Quality Management was first coming on the scene for American businesses, it was the Quality Manager's job to learn how to do it, how it applied to the company's business and then teach the rest of the company what to do so they could implement the new technology and contribute to the bottom line. Today, TQM is built into most successful organizations at all levels and there may be no single person with the title Quality Manager. Back then, however, as the technology was being adopted, the Quality Manager typically reported directly to the chief executive officer of the company. Why? Because it was most important that the executive suite fully understand the things that were going to transform their company into a more profitable entity and that they be directly involved in the adoption of the new technology to help the Quality Manager with the strategic insight necessary to direct the effort in the most successful ways possible.

Sound familiar? In order for social media to make the greatest impact possible to improve the future of an organization, it must be endorsed and understood fully from the top down. Those responsible for bringing this new technology to an organization will have to report to the top to make sure there are no surprises and that the most benefit possible can be garnered from it. This is especially crucial because of the lightning speed at which this new technology moves. It's easy to do a lot of good quickly using social media, but doing it wrong is noticed just as quickly.

So where does your company's Social Media Manager report? Is it time for the top brass to help that person make the decisions about how your company is going to... Join the Conversation?

Some thirty plus years ago, US manufacturing companies began to wake up to the realization that they needed to get serious about quality. Foreign and domestic competition who understood the power of Total Quality Management were eating their lunch. Businesses had to learn about quality management and quality improvement techniques and learn fast. So what did they do? They established a position called "Quality Manager." They gave this person the mission of learning about TQM, applying it to their own business and then teaching the rest of the organization what they learned so it could be implemented quickly and successfully across the organization. This strategy worked and many businesses rapidly adopted the new techniques to improve quality and reduce costs, thereby increasing both market share and the bottom line.

Sound familiar? Today, modern businesses are in exactly the same position with regard to Social Media as they were with regard to TQM all those years ago. They know it's out there and that it's potentially very important. But they don't know what it really can do for them, how to use it properly and how to stay out of trouble with it. It's time for companies to recognize the enormous opportunity and potential of using social media to contribute to the bottom line.

Early adopters of TQM had the edge and early adopters of SM will, too. So who's your company's Social Media manager? Is it time for you to get one and... Join the Conversation?

, 

Web 2.0 is no longer just for teenagers.

Social networking has clearly reached a tipping point. Sites like MySpace and Facebook boast hundreds of millions of members. Barack Obama's presidential victory demonstrated that platforms like YouTube and Twitter could transform electoral politics. Yet in corporations where such tools have been expected to bring profound transformations, there has been strong resistance to change.

Many corporate executives either dismiss social networking as a time-wasting distraction or regard it as a risk management problem. Much of their fear has focused on potential risks like security breaches and data privacy

Web 2.0 evangelists, on the other hand, argue that social software can be used to boost productivity. They say it can facilitate an open-ended corporate culture that values transparency, collaboration and innovation. Most important, it can be an effective way to build a customer-centric organization that not only communicates authentically but also listens to customers and learns from that interaction.

In the current stormy economy, as companies look for new ways to market their products and engage their customers, chief executive officers are finally looking more and more at how social networking tools can extend their brands, create corporate cultures based on listening and learning, and establish their own leadership profiles.

Nonetheless, big brands, generally speaking, haven't successfully tapped the potential of social media; they tend to regard Web 2.0 platforms as just another way to push out short-term marketing campaigns. They fail to grasp that the new media require new ways of doing business. Old ways need to be tossed out.

One highly successful example of Web 2.0 branding is Blendtec's YouTube video campaign "Will It Blend?" The video series features Blendtec's CEO, Tom Dickson, comically attempting to blend all manner of objects in one of his company's appliances. Thanks to the series' viral effects, the company's blender sales have quintupled.

The Blendtec videos cost virtually nothing to produce and distribute, but it is doubtful that TV commercials costing many times more would have produced the same results. That may explain why publicity-conscious CEOs are finally breaking away from the old mass-media approach of a Donald Trump or a Richard Branson to increasingly use videos and podcasts to extend their personal brands.

As more and more businesses migrate to the use of social media the proverbial question of legal risk raises its ugly head. Legal concerns of uncontrolled employee participation, disclosure of private corporate information and related matters causes corporate legal departments to raise concerns about controlling communications in public forums.

According to Lauren Gelman, associate director of the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society, it’s all about control. “Employers aren’t happy that employees have this new ability to speak about the workplace and about their employers to the world,” said Gelman. “No longer do the public relations departments have the sole avenue of communication as to what the company message is.”

Subsequently we’re seeing the appearance of new corporate policies relative to use of “social technology” on company time and specifically as it relates to using social media to achieve specific corporate objectives. According to The Blog Council’s research, 64 (12.8%) of the Fortune 500 are blogging. Open the link below to see their table which lists these companies, a sampling of their blogs, and links to Fortune 500 business blog reviews. You can discuss this wiki on Twitter at the Tweetworks Group Fortune500BusinessBlogs. John Cass is currently the volunteer community organizer for the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki.

Which Risk Are The Greatest?

Having a corporate policy concerning use of social media is a means to mitigating legal risk however not understanding and managing the related factors can actually create more risk not covered in a corporate policy. There are several factors that influence the ultimate risk of a transparent world fueled by social technology. These factors include:

1. Corporate culture: Improving corporate culture is an ongoing process largely influenced by communications. If the current culture breeds distrust between management and employees social media can help a transformation or it can create further distrust. Management positions, actions, and communications relative to the use of social media will be the guide for the employees to determine whether the initiatives are truly “social” or another attempt to control employee opinions through spin. Trust is a sensitive issue.
2. Educational Resources: Opening up your company to use of the multitude of social technologies without providing educational resources can be very dangerous. Using social technology is both an art and a science. Like any new technology using it effectively is a learning curve for all participants. The faster people learn the quicker the organization will realize optimal benefits. The landscape of social technology, its uses, new developments and best practices is an ongoing process which requires monitoring and communicating to those who will be participating.
3. Message & Method Alignment: Traditional marketing methods and messages need to be in alignment or your organization will be ridiculed by the blogosphere. Don’t say or do one thing without the other saying and doing the same. The market of conversations looks for consistency in message and methods. Pushing a message verse engaging the market in a conversation can hurt your reputation and recovery takes time.
4. Defining Strategic Objectives: It is important that businesses define the strategic objectives for using social media. Not having measurable objectives that relate, directly as well as indirectly, to specific business objectives will create the risk of wasting time, energy and money which reduces business optimization and shareholder value.
5. Plan, Do, Check & Act: Having a corporate policy to mitigate legal liabilities is only part of the requirements of successfully using social media. Designing and executing a plan covering items 1-4 above plus incorporating measures to monitor impacts and being prepared to adjust your plan periodically reduces the ultimate risk of poor performance and negative reactions by your market.

So business leaders and their legal departments must go beyond simply creating a “corporate policy about the use of social media” and consider the “systemic risk” of not having the knowledge or resources to effectively manage all the “risk factors”. Which risk is greater? The legal issues or those outlined in 1 – 5 above?  Stating the rules is one thing but not understanding the spirit of the rule is another.

What say you?

PS: We’ve just completed a white paper titled “An Assessment of Social Media Policies & Practices”. If you’d like a copy go to our store

A billboard is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertisements to passing pedestrians and drivers. Typically showing large, ostensibly witty slogans, and distinctive visuals, billboards are highly visible in the top designated market areas. In 1964 the negative impact of the over-proliferation of signage was abundantly evident in Houston, Texas, and motivated Lady Bird Johnson to ask her husband to create a law. At the same time the outdoor advertising industry itself was becoming keenly aware that the existence of too many signs, some literally one in front of the other, was bad for business.

Currently, four states—Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine—have prohibited billboards.

Do Billboards Belong on the Conversational Highway?

The social web is a highway of conversations. Brands want their billboards on high traffic highways of relevant conversations. Consumers behavior is clearly showing a distaste for “old billboards thrown in the middle of their conversations.” This is becoming more and more evident with the reduced click-through rates for what has been labeled as “social advertising”. The old advertising methods are being rejected and replaced by an older method that is more human and it’s called a conversation.

Marketers must learn that the best way to get consumer attention is to enable customers to brag about their experience with your brand. The relationships that drive the quality of experience are upstream. Every brand has a system of production, distribution, sales & marketing and customer service. Production is collaboration with suppliers and employees. Distribution is a relationship with channel partners. Sales & marketing is a relational process with markets and customer service is an after the sale relational experience. Everything a business does is relational.

While much is being discussed about “how” brands can effectively engage in conversations, a more important yet complex discussion needs to focus on “how” brands could create exceptional customer experiences in which the customer would share with others. The quality of an organizations product or service is directly correlated to the quality of relations which produce the product/service experience with the end customer.

If management cannot foster healthy internal relations, than it is folly to expect healthy customer relations. The old game of slick marketing messages and entertaining ads do not reflect the true customer experience with the product or service. Running ads on blogs and social networks will not capture consumer attention. When a consumer wants to “shop” for something the process usually starts with a referral from a “friend” or a conversation with someone who has experienced your brand. The “friend”, given the reach of the social web, is likely to be an employee, supplier or existing customer.

The social web and all its transparency is not turning up the heat on marketing and advertising methods rather the heat is turning on management. Management may in fact include senior people within the marketing and advertising departments. However unless the organization has a progressive leader, old management methods of the past will only reinforce old marketing and advertising methods that simply will not work in the new economy.

The web presents a new “system” that is ever evolving and creating new dynamics and new rules to old games. The irony of the evolving “system” of the web is that it is largely influenced by the preferences and privileges of people having conversations about everything, everyone and the experiences with anything. The new markets are creating new rules to old games. The new rules are people centric and value driven. The Socialutions lie not within the system of technology rather of the relational system of “people and values”.

Get it? The conversational billboards are loud, bright, connected and extremely the people read them. What will or are the people saying about your business? Check the social billboards and you’ll find out.

One last thing.  Whether you have a corporate social media policy or not your employees are free to converse with anyone.