{"id":2038,"date":"2012-10-11T10:00:26","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T18:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=2038"},"modified":"2012-10-11T09:25:47","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T17:25:47","slug":"hr-technology-conference-reactions-social-media-panel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=2038","title":{"rendered":"HR Technology Conference Reactions: Social Media Panel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019ll admit.\u00a0 I\u2019m devastated.\u00a0 Lexy Martin<\/a> and Thomas Otter<\/a> were both presenting at the same time as this session.\u00a0 Had I the option, I would have pulled a Hermione Granger Time Turner thing<\/a>.\u00a0 You know where she goes back in time to take more classes?\u00a0 I\u2019d do that for these 3 sessions, but instead, I\u2019m just a muggle.\u00a0 (OK, enough of that nonsense.)<\/p>\n

The panel consisted of Moderator: Kris Dunn<\/a> (VP, HR, Kinetix ), Todd Chandler<\/a> (VP, Learning and Performance, Helzberg Diamonds) , Ben Brooks<\/a> (SVP & Global Director, Enterprise Communications & Colleague Engagement, Marsh Inc.), \u00a0Phoebe Venkat<\/a> (Director, Digital and Social Media Communications, ADT).\u00a0 As with my prior post, I\u2019ll go with the same format:<\/p>\n

Theme #1: File Centric versus People Centric.<\/strong> Perhaps this first theme is a bit obvious.\u00a0 It really comes down to a definitional aspect of social versus where we have come from\/are today.\u00a0 There is nothing wrong with being file based, it\u2019s here for a long time to come.\u00a0 We operate in files today because that is how we store information and value.\u00a0 Add to that we can easily search and tuck things away in a folder system, and we have a mediocre way to maintain information.\u00a0 Thus, the next phase of evolution, if we are going to go social, we have to understand that the storage of prior information is not where it all is.\u00a0 Instead, the generation of new information is paramount, and that comes from the exchange of ideas that social enterprise presents.\u00a0 Thus, I call this a theme, but it\u2019s really the starting point of the conversation \u2013 a definition of change.<\/p>\n

Theme #2:\u00a0 Email versus Social.<\/strong> If Theme #1 was a definition, perhaps Theme #2 is the problem statement.\u00a0 Indeed, email is much more of a communication tool than a file storage tool as we all know when our corporate IT tells us we have gone over our 2 gig storage capacity.\u00a0 The problem is that emails are so far from a real time production of value that it\u2019s actually a barrier to the speedy creation of new insights.\u00a0 Add that most of us also use emails for CYA and self preservation, and we quickly realize the major inhibitor that emails can be.\u00a0 If we\u2019re looking to protect ourselves and cover our tracks rather than provide new meaning to our jobs, this is a major directional problem for email.\u00a0 So while social gives us productivity at the speed of conversation, emails are just too much of a security blanket for most workers to overcome in the very short term.<\/p>\n

Theme #3:\u00a0 Search and data mining.<\/strong> There are probably a couple aspects here.\u00a0 The first one is about how we go about naturally doing our business today.\u00a0 We\u2019re organized in offices and cubes, or we go to meetings and sit at tables.\u00a0 The interactions we have are largely based on who we see every day.\u00a0 What is great about social is not that it allows us to reach past our normal daily interactions, but that it can help search for new contacts and encourage those interactions.\u00a0 Sure we have emails, phone calls, instant messenger today, but with social we get to group ourselves logically based on something else other than location\/job\/department.\u00a0 But we have to go beyond simple conversations.\u00a0 The reason Facebook is not useful as an enterprise social tool is because you really can\u2019t search the conversations.\u00a0 Mining conversations for who is connected to who, what people are talking about, and how that impacts actual work and innovation is the key to creating value.<\/p>\n

Theme #4:\u00a0 Bad behavior. <\/strong> I remember 5 years ago when HR was just starting to enter the conversations about having social networks in the workplace.\u00a0 Fully half of the conversations revolved around \u201cbad behavior\u201d or people just going crazy and doing\/saying things they should not.\u00a0 While you do have to set aside some rules of the road, you really can\u2019t stop people from posting things.\u00a0 Trying to moderate every comment would be absurd, and the consensus is that very little bad behavior actually happens.\u00a0 The thing is, we should not have to create new social policies.\u00a0 We already have them in place.\u00a0 People also know how to behave already, and if they don\u2019t, your managers should already be having these conversations.\u00a0 This discussion presented one of the crowning moments of the conference for me (and I wish I could remember who said it).\u00a0 \u201cIf you have a jerk, let them rise to the top so you can fire them.\u201d\u00a0 Another lovely quote, \u201cHR\u2026 get over it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Theme #5: Creating change. <\/strong> Social for social sake is a bad idea.\u00a0 You will get low adoption, and unless you are targeting your deployment to solving a real business problem, your audience will never really understand \u201cwhy?\u201d\u00a0 Some of the suggestions revolved around polling the internal community for how your workers want to interact with each other, and then deploying solutions with the ability to say, \u201cthis is the tool you guys requested.\u201d\u00a0 A great example:\u00a0 being one of the first at a dinner and not knowing anyone sucks.\u00a0 But if you have a great host who is actively introducing people to each other, and contextually matching people\u2019s interests, then you have really quick engagement.\u00a0 The other interesting note that caught me off guard because it\u2019s so basic, is not discounting the impact of faces and names.\u00a0 If you think about Facebook, actually seeing faces is a pretty big part of how you interact with the tool.\u00a0 There is a possibility that you see the face before you read the name, and that\u2019s often how you engage with conversations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll admit.\u00a0 I\u2019m devastated.\u00a0 Lexy Martin and Thomas Otter were both presenting at the same time as this session.\u00a0 Had I the option, I would have pulled a Hermione Granger Time Turner thing.\u00a0 You know where she goes back in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,28,48,8,2,44,46],"tags":[322,360,453,359,238,352,78,361,348,51,362],"class_list":["post-2038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collaboration","category-communications","category-hr-service-delivery","category-strategies","category-hr-technology","category-innovation","category-web-20","tag-bad-behavior","tag-ben-brooks","tag-change-management","tag-data-mining","tag-email","tag-hr-technology-conference","tag-kris-dunn","tag-phoebe-venkat","tag-social","tag-social-media","tag-todd-chandler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2038"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2087,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038\/revisions\/2087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}