Organisations “Don’t get” social media

Image by Intersection Consulting via Flickr

POST UPDATED 09.12.11

In general most organisations still don’t understand or don’t want to understand the impact, benefits and competitive advantage that social media can, in many cases, still provide. The problem lies in the half hearted way many organisations introduce social media within the organisation. Brian Glick, in his ComputerWeekly column said that (In summary) organisations in general still thought that employees, if given the option, would spend their time on social media sites instead of working are missing the important point. Organisations could reap significant benefits and it was in the interests of organisations to improve collaboration and communication with ‘customers, suppliers and partners.’ One of the reasons for not adopting social media is that social media is at the stage where email and the Internet were 15-20 years ago. I remember that at the time many organisations used to view email/Internet access in the same way. Now, email and Internet access forms the fabric of most organisations. For those organisations that just ‘don’t get’ social media, I will provide a simple three step process to ‘get you there.’

Step One – The social media policy

This does not have to be a completely new policy; this can be an addendum to the existing computer usage or Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) of an organisation. This should include acceptable/unacceptable behaviour for employees on social media such as blogging, social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter etc. The secret is to embrace social media, get your employees involved and make them your ambassadors in the new world of social media. Tony Redshaw, Aviva CIO captures the essence well, “If you want people to use it, you have to tolerate them using it and not always in the way you expect.” To get you started, here are a few links:

• 10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy
• 3 Great Social Media Policies to Steal From
• Social Media policy examples
• 200 sample Social Media policies and ideas
• Apple’s social media policy

Step two – Internal and external Social Media adoption

Harnessing the power of social media will provide you with two key benefits:

1. Collaboration and knowledge sharing becomes easier. Organisations of all sizes have struggled for years to capture the expertise of their knowledge experts without much success. Internal Social media platforms make that process simple and employees are encouraged to create ‘expert’ content. Expertise becomes easier to access, as Aviva’s example (QUICK STATS – £350 Billion assets, £50 billion sales, 54000 staff, and currently 120 wikis with potential for 600 more) demonstrates. For example, in Aviva’s case, Tony Redshaw, Aviva CIO said, “One of our people in the Melbourne office was having a complex issue. Someone in our York (England) office saw their online post. Within 24 hours they had related their experience and suggested a way of fixing it, and…problem solved. There was no way before for the two to hook up and for that information exchange to happen.”
2. The younger generation leaving schools and universities is social media literate. They already have social media profiles on Facebook, MySpace and Bebo etc. Organisations are finding it hard to recruit and retain youngsters where social media equivalents are not available internally and where social media access generally is restrained. The primary reason is that these younger people utilise these technologies to communicate and interact with the world at large. Embracing the younger generation through social media adoption can bring benefits that may not have been anticipated. They will utilise these platforms in innovative ways, providing competitive advantage and adding to the bottom line.

Step three – Setup and monitoring Social Media

Organisations’ spend tremendous amounts of their finances on marketing and advertising but tend to spend no money on correct setup, creating the correct social media culture and actually monitoring social media. For the past month, I have been researching an organisation that thinks that it ‘gets’ social media. The way they have decided to setup their social media, I am sure, in their opinion is correct. Let me just explain how they have setup their social media. They have a blog but only their wholesalers can access it and oh, by the way, they would have to register to read the blog articles. They have setup a social media account with one of the main social media platforms. End customers are not allowed to become members of that group, as it is aimed at the wholesalers only. Customers have been wandering the web looking for information about their products but cannot easily access information about their products or have anywhere or anyone to go to for further information; even product enhancements have been discussed by customers. An independent site talks about the chemical products in their products as naturally occurring and their website fails to display that information. Ok, so why am I telling you all this and why is it important?

Let me explain. Social media is not a tool where the success can be measured in a given time frame/short term. Relationships are developed and nurtured utilising various social media platforms over both short/long term. It is a tool that allows us to interact with each other and our customers. The need is to, ‘engage and interact.’ This particular organisation has not done that. In actual fact, it has unconsciously created all sorts of barriers stopping its very customers reaching and interacting with it. I couldn’t find any evidence of anyone utilising social media to have any conversations anywhere with its customers. Social media is not being monitored and so this organisation has no way of knowing if anyone is posting any comments (positive or negative) anywhere on social media.

For example, I did come across some negative comments that could have been countered by simply informing the customer on where to find the information. Another example covered in my blog post a few weeks ago showed that if , Toyota had monitored social media, it would have become aware much earlier that its customers were unhappy and that it could impact Toyota’s reputation. Here are a few links to get you started:

• 22 Hot new social media tools worth exploring
• Top 10 Social Media monitoring tools that you should start using today
• Top 10 Free Tools for Monitoring Your Brand’s Reputation
• Top 10 Reputation Tracking Tools Worth Paying For
• 5 FREE Analysis Tools to Master The Real-Time Web
• A Wiki of social monitoring tools (Quite a large list)

More SM Tools:

Hootsuite , Tweetdeck , Yoono , Wefollow , Listorious , Twellow , Twellowhood , Klout , Visibli , Quora, Instagr.am , Pitchengine , Addictomatic , Tubemogul , Untweeps, Twitalyzer , Topsy , Ping.fm , Friendfeed , Google Alerts , Postrank , Storify , Backtype , Big-boards/ , Getclicky , Twitterfeed , Twitter Search , Onlywire , Hashtracking , Socialmention , Seesmic.com/ , Flock , Pingdom.com/ , Hubspot , Diaspora , Monitter.com/

Top Commercial Tools for large organisations (Cost more, probably not affordable by small business or for personal use):

Top 20 Social Media monitoring vendors for business

Radian 6 , Lithium , Attensity 360 , Alterian , Spiral 16 , Buzz Logic, Cymfony , Cision , Trackur

In summary:

• Ensure that you have appropriate policies/guidelines to help employees navigate social media.
• Adopt social media in a way that benefits your organisation and interact with a wide audience.
• Monitor social media and use it to interact with your customers, suppliers and partners.
• The objective internally is to create an environment of collaboration that allows the open exchange of ideas.
• The objective externally is to create a ‘buzz’ and awareness about your product and organisation, in addition to PR.

Related articles

• Social Media for B2B marketing (andywoodsblog.com)
• Making the Most of Social Media Marketing (theresabloginmysoup.com)
• How to get your CxO on board with Social Media (leadsexplorer.com)

‘Boring’ label shows industry is ignorant about GCSE ICT – A CW Readers response

Over the past few months, quite a lot has been said in Computing/IT magazines/forums and discussions on the state of affairs of the current GCSE in IT/ICT within the UK. That includes me as well, as I have referred to the state of IT education etc in previous blogs – Nurturing future IT Professionals and leaders and The future graduate and the IT and computing skills shortage. I was trying to catch up with my obligatory reading and had just reached page 14 of ComputerWeekly (CW 3-9 Nov 09) when I came across Ruth Nuttall’s letter. I found it was a breath of fresh air and an interesting read as it’s not often that we receive the views of teachers on this important subject. I could have just inserted a link to the page but in spite of my best efforts to find the article on CW’s site, I couldn’t locate it. So, I have actually done it the hard way as I just wanted all of you to read it, so I have actually sat down and re-typed Ruth’s entire letter. Reproduced thanks to ComputerWeekly and Ruth Nuttall, ICT teacher and computing co-ordinator Hazelwick School, West Sussex. Ruth said:

I read with increasing irritation the article “Boring IT GCSE must go”. I am a computing and ICT teacher at a school in West Sussex, and this article summarises all of the assumptions and lack of knowledge typified by journalists and certain types of business people. The headline itself displays a basic ignorance of ICT/ computing in education – there is no such qualification as a GCSE in IT.

We teach GCSE ICT and an equivalent course called OCR Nationals (ICT). In an educational context, the subject is called information and communication technology. There are many different qualifications at GCSE level that can be opted for, including the courses we offer, the DiDA course, BTECs etc. I am not disputing that the subject of ICT has suffered in recent years – in the past it has been taught by non specialist teachers, as it was not possible to train as an ICT teacher until relatively recently. This use of non specialist teachers is one of the main reasons that the subject has come to be seen in some schools as boring and out of date.

In my department, most ICT teachers did a degree in an ICT or computer science field, or have worked in the IT industry and trained as ICT specialist teachers. We are constantly updating what and how we teach to engage and inspire the children who do an ICT GCSE at my school. Most GCSE syllabuses allow schools the flexibility to adapt the course to suit their needs – the GCSE course that we follow has four coursework projects, two are proscribed (spreadsheets and databases) but the other two are free choice, and could be on any topic from programming to web design to animation or game design.

However, due to the lack of subject specialists in some schools, often teachers choose to do topics such as word processing and desktop publishing as their free choice. This is what can lead to the idea that ICT is boring. It is not clear from your article what role E-Skills has in the development of future syllabuses. The GCSE ICT offerings from each of the major exam boards are already changing next year, and these specifications have been finalised and approved.

There is an IT diploma that is being developed and is in its first year of delivery – this is something that E-Skills has been heavily involved in. Is it possible that you have confused this with the GCSE ICT offerings? The diploma is aimed at 14- to 19-year-olds and can be taken at three levels, and so could be equivalent to GCSEs or A-levels. There is also a GCSE in computing being offered by the exam board OCR as a trial in September 2010. At this point it is worth noting that ICT and computing are related but very different subjects, somewhat like the difference between business studies and economics, or geography and geology. Not all ICT teachers have the academic background required to teach computing.

You seem to use the terms ICT, IT and computing interchangeably in your article, and to have confused all of these different types of qualifications. The final comment in your article from British Airways CIO Paul Coby is deeply offensive to me and my fellow teachers – “GCSE IT teaching is appalling and out of date”. How precisely does he know this? How many schools has he been in and seen what is being taught? Or is this based on anecdotes and preformed opinions?

We work hard at school to motivate and inspire pupils, and we have a large and successful ICT department that offers a variety of ICT or computing courses. We may be the exception that proves the rule, but to dismiss all teachers and a whole subject area out of hand and without a voice from teachers is foolish and lazy.

The future Graduate and the IT and Computing skills shortage

I have wanted to write this article for a while now.  When I was in university, the IT skills shortage stood at 3 million and the popular IT/Computing magazines were half full of employment adverts. That era has long gone but we, in the UK are still suffering as IT skills shortages reach the highest level in 10 years,  we continue not to learnt from the past and it seems that while we continue to churn out graduates, they seem to lack skills that employers want/need. In addition, the coming generation shun the industry because of a perceived lack of glamour and a reputation for hard work. It doesn’t all end there as recent reports suggest that The UK’s software development industry will suffer the same decline as the country’s manufacturing sector unless action is taken to tackle the skills shortage.

Have we become a nation that is forced to import talent from asia? Do we import talent because its, well, cheaper? I will let you decide.

This topic  is close to my heart as I strongly feel that the UK can become a leader in the IT/Computing arena. Well, if that is the case, how do we go about doing it?

I have realised now the secret of success for new graduates is to locate a degree course that equips them with the theoratical and practical knowledge of performing well in their area of study. Students would do well by using ‘pre-job board’ sites like Careerplayer. This site holds hundreds of videos with real people/graduates in real jobs, talking about their job and what it really entails, good and bad – sharing their honest view of their role. Using a site like Careerplayer will help them to de-select the IT/Computing career paths, if its not for them.

While researching this topic, I found an interesting article by Felix Redmill of Redmill Consultancy . I totally agree with all that has been said by Felix but would want to add by saying that both the government and industry have a role to play to ensure that the UK has a future equipped with suitable graduates, in essence creating a pseudo standard for such degrees with a vision for wider adoption.

I have split IT and Computing into three areas as I feel that these three areas need a slightly different kind of graduate and at least two of these areas have a pseudo standard that should be adopted/followed UK wide. In actual fact, to raise the bar of these degree courses, I would go as far as to say that all IT/Computing/gaming degrees should be validated by the government, with a minimum agreed of modules that are standard within all  three areas identfied below:

1. Information Technology Management

This is an area where government and industry have been brought together by eskills UK to validate IT management courses.  Read the following for more information:

News in Brief for new Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB) Degree course

HP teams with Thames Valley University to address UK Skills Shortage

eskills and IMTB

Universities offering the IMTB degree course (14)

Sample IMTB degree content from University of Manchester

 2. Software Engineering (Programming)

I couldn’t find any resources to indicate even any pseudo standards. This area would be covered well by a region by region basis and associated demand for programmers according to industries served within that region. For example, the universities near the UK’s silicon valley (Reading area) could offer courses on .net, Oracle etc due to local presence of these industry behomeths.

3. Computer Games Progamming

Again for games programming, 81 universities offer courses but only 4 are accredited by Skillset. Again, this suggests a lack of any standard degree for gaming.

It is no wonder, then that when graduates graduate, employers seem bewildered as to the calibre of graduate that they are taking onboard. I have even known of students that have completed their degree courses, employed by employers as programmers only to find that they do not know how to program in the language being used by that employer!