Social Media and the Workplace
Wow, what can you say about the seemingly endless array of social media literally bursting into what used to be a less participative virtual world?
It's leading rapidly to the "big conversation," according to a panel of new media experts featured at the CoreNet Global Summit in New Orleans.
"Boldly connecting that which has never been connected before," quipped Keith Perske about the astounding adoption rate of this multi-modal communications thoroughfare.
Once referred to as "the information highway," it's gone quite quickly in only the last 2 - 3 years to a "real-time ability to be online with two-way (or greater) interaction underpinned by aggregated information based on those interactions," explained Perske, a mobility expert, partner in Group 5 Consulting and former workplace overseer for Sun Microsystems.
Richard Jordan, a social media expert also from Group 5, and Kim Burt, a creative force in the world of virtual collaboration, were also featured on the panel.
The presentation started with a screen packed full of more than 100 or so social media site logos.
But the group proved that all these channels don't have to be a mess, especially when they're effectively managed from a workplace mobility standpoint.
"Broadcasting in one-way style has been the historical approach," said Burt, whose firm OCCo Original Creative Coop BV has helped define uncanny ways of collaborating through channels like "ning clouds" and "wikis."
Don't be fooled. It's not vapor ware.
Companies like Hearst, H&R Block, and Starbucks are using this stuff to better track their brand reputations, promote collaboration and innovation, and even do performance reviews. Add technology and media companies like IBM and Comcast to the list. Even they have copped a lick from the growing span of media channels and technology devices that form the essence of this "structured, layered and rich set of communications options" as Jordan described the ever-widening spectrum.
Look at it as "a multi-modal" way to connect and take it from there, as Perske instructed.
Although he stopped short of actually citing the latest hot 'gagdet,' the iPad, Jordan framed this high-velocity world around the idea of multimedia integration.
While it appears the iPad is among the first 'devices' to capture all of those media on one piece of hardware, it's only one component in a deepening sea of ways to carry on what's becoming known as "the big conversation," according to Perske.
Funny, while kids are all over this array of hand-held and other new media, savvy companies are beginning to figure out that they're safe, secure and available on the enterprise, not just individual, level.
One reason is that these various mobile technologies - hardware or software - make the need for physical space less important, though not irrelevant. "The traditional access point to work was the office. Now it's devices," like PDA's Perske asserted.
Considering that vacant space can cost companies $8,500 per year per seat, it's a compelling argument. But it's not just about cost savings. "Enabling productivity is key," Jordan added, hinting that social media can become business drivers for companies.
So much is the case that Kim Burt pointed directly to several examples of how social media improved speed to market and speed to competency. In other words, remotely accessed interactive technologies are becoming vital knowledge sharing and training channels. She shared a video clip of a British Telecom executive who informs and trains people in the field using social media. Cisco uses its own telepresence technology to interview job candidates and even do performance reviews.
This "augmented reality" as one of Burt's intellectual cohorts, Ian Hughes, terms it, is morphing into a business management tool. Companies are using social media to build their brands, maintain relationships with partners and establish positions in the marketplace, as Jordan related. That's the strategic side of what's going on.
In a more tactical sense, Jordan added, it's speedier information delivery, informing employees and partners, and involving stakeholders that add up to a new direction for businesses, even a new business model.
It takes an integrated strategy, so why shouldn't corporate real estate(CRE) play a role? It's kind of like sustainability. Commercial space represents something like 60% of the carbon footprint, so the connection to CRE is clear. With social media, the solid line maps directly to different ways of working and less space usage.
"Fire buildings, not people," is how Perske connected the two domains: sustainability and social media.
But like so many other things we do well, it takes integrated strategies and toolsets, processes and procedures. While it's hard to imagine that something so informal should be so structured in a corporate sense, in the end, "It's more about content and the psychology of the audience and less to do with the technology required," as Burt spelled it out.
Oh, by the way, it will also lead to less email!