The Social Organization

Communities - The New Strategic Imperative

By now most of us have a rough understanding of Moore's Law and the exponentially increase in the processing power of technology:

While this increase in technical productivity has been celebrated liberally over the years and has generated huge amonts of value and wealth, it has changed the cost structure of businesses in ways that put increasing amonts of stress on people. Unfortunately human cranial capacity does not evolve quite so fast - changing over millions of years, not hundreds:

What does that have to do with social media?  Well, networked communication channels have existed for quite a while but there usage was limited - IRC chats were typically frequented by the more technically inclined, for example. But as organizations have applied technology and their operational speed has increased, humans - not technology & tools - became the biggest limitation to innovation and productivity. With that change, individuals have become more and more stressed because their processing capacity has not evolved. My hypothesis is that social media took off when it did in large part due to the strain being put on individuals to keep up with the pace of technological change. Social media has created an immense improvement in the speed of which individuals can share information and make decisions. This is great as it reduces some of the stress on the individuals in the system.

The problem? Technical processing power will continue to increase and once everyone is social tool-enabled they will end up in the same spot where they were before - as the biggest limitation to operational speed. What then? Humans cannot go faster and faster without breaking the quality of their decision-making and judgement. So while social communications channels will persist, their value to the organizational system will plateau. For those most connected now, they are the canaries in the coal mines - completely overwhelmed by the amount of information coming at them from a myriad of communication channels.

This leads me to the conclusion that a strategy of faster will no longer be effective and, in fact, it will eventually lead you to crash and burn. What humans need and what will give an organizational competitive differentiation is the time and space to build quality products and services that are rewarded with higher margins. The way to acheive that time and space for people to do their best work is through highly trusting relationships with customers - and it is the only way. Customers must trust that by giving your company time to build a quality product or effectively support them, they will be better served.

That has some pretty broad implications. It means that to win, organizations will have to:

• Focus on building relationships first, rather than focus on the products and services first
• Educate and expose customers on internal processes so they understand and have realistic expectations of delivery
• Build in boundaries that allow individuals to slow down and focus
• Build trusted relationships with employees such that they not only don't feel pressure to go faster but are incented to make sure they are thorough and inclusive in their work

Communities are one of the few ways to scale some aspects of relationship development and building. Those companies who are ready for this next phase of operational effectiveness are busy investing in relationships today and not worrying quite as much about the short term ROI.  Those organizations too focused on the short term, transactional ROI of social media may find that they missed the boat as social media effectiveness flattens because their customers and prospects are off building deep, rich relationships elsewhere and, at the end of the day, those customers and prospects only have room for a limited number of those relationships.

It's time to fundamentally rethink how value is assessed, created and distributed and how we think about our competitive landscape.

Want to hear more about this from me? I'll be presenting these and other thoughts at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference on Tuesday, June 21st in Boston.

What do you think? Are you personally feeling stressed? Do you think your organization wants to keep its foot on the gas to the exclusion of quality? Which companies have always done this relationship piece well and have they prospered?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Understanding Digital Body Language

Digital Body Language is not a new term but it is new to me. I recently heard Valeria Maltoni use it and after digging a bit more, found that it was originally a term created by Steve Woods, founder of Eloqua that referred to the anticipation of customer needs in the demand generation and lead development context which is not exactly what came to mind for me when I heard it.  However, I love the term and the idea behind it - that there are ways to infer a person's intent through how they behave online.

When I initially mentioned the term on Twitter I got a lot of 'huh?' type of responses back but after years of watching people interact online it is clear to me that you can infer quite a bit about people's unwritten intent.  How?

• When a person's cadence changes from their normal cadence when they interact with you - whether slower or faster
• When a person ignores a directed update on their Wall or in their Twitter stream
• When a person does not follow another back or friend them
• How and when someone inserts themselves into a public conversation
• How a person proactively requests connections and on which platforms.
• What and who a person RTs or shares
• How reactive and emotional individuals are (are they quick to judge or slower to respond to good/bad news?)

Relationships are in large part about the exchange of energy between two people. Relationships grow when that energy and enthusiasm is reciprocated. If it is not, one person is forcing the relationship forward despite the other person's lack of enthusiasm. Companies do that all the time. Lots of people do that all the time too. If you listen and watch carefully to both what is and what is not said, you can optimize your efforts on the people who are genuinely interested and engaged. It is both more cost effective and more fulfilling in the long run.

What signals do you watch for to determine others' intent online?

Social Media's Pull: People Want Comfort More Than Food

We don't often like to compare ourselves to children or monkeys but the truth is that we're not that different.  As adults, we often hide our needs, desires, and disappointments but when looking to understand the behavior of adults, it is useful to watch children and animals because they have no artifice masking their instincts.  One of the most powerful and heartbreaking experiments ever done was by Harry Harlow on how baby monkeys form attachments and how important comfort was to their existence.  The video below shows that baby monkeys will take comfort over food - in effect starving themselves in order to feel OK.

I can hardly watch the video but the point is that animals and people (we're not biologically all that different after all) will choose something comforting over a more obvious need like food.  To me, this gets at the heart of why the social interactions facilitated by social media and social software can make such a big difference to the individuals that interact with organizations.  Individuals will flock to organizations that offer comfort (personalized attention) even if the 'food' - i.e. salary, product cost, partnering costs - does not make economic sense for the individual. 

For organizations, this has a couple of implications:

• Resources and time spent on effective personalized experiences with employees and customers will see the returns in the form of higher margins, lower operating costs, and increased retention rates.
• The recent conversation about applying business process and integrating 'social' into existing processes should be very carefully pursued.  If the social element becomes just as standardized as current processes, it won't have much impact.  The business processes themselves must become more flexible and adaptable to individuals which is now possible because social software reduces the cost to support that flexibility.

The issue many of us have is responding to requests to quantify how much comfort is enough. In essence, we are being asked to put a dollar amount on feelings. If you have any suggestions on how to do that, I'm all ears. In the absence of being able to do that, each organization will need to experiment (which, I'm sorry to say, will cost some money) and turn the dial up and down until they find what balance of 'comfort' and 'food' works best for them given their unique market and the unique constraints of their organization.

A Plea to Professional Communicators - Don't Be Microphones

 Social media - as a business conversation - has been around now for a number of years. It's not new anymore, at least conceptually.  There are still a lot of operational details to figure out in terms of how it integrates with an organization's current processes, structures, and resources but unless you've been under a rock, you've been hearing a lot about it for a while. You may be tired of it.

If you are a professional communications person and by that I mean you are in a role explicitly responsible for ensuring communications happens (that could mean you are in PR, marketing, customer support, project management, executive management, HR, etc.) you would be crazy by now not to be at least experimenting and educating yourself on how social tools and methods are changing the fundamentals of your job.

One issue that I've noticed that is a risk if you are a communications professional, is these new 'social' methods will expose your communication style pretty quickly and, frankly, for many that communication style is not particularly effective. It may be time to take a good hard look at how well you communicate in general (forget Twitter, etc).

Let me explain.  Over the last few years I have interacted with a large range of communications professionals who are exploring this new social landscape (kudos to them). However, many immediately expose the fact that they could care less about who they are speaking with because they are on a mission to educate themselves and then figure out how to get their message out. While their focus may be admirable their efficacy in making an impact is very low.  They use others for their own needs without offering anything in exchange. I've personally had a few experiences of spending hours of my time with groups and not even receiving the most basic 'thank you' in return. This leaves me feeling used and thinking they are extremely rude and don't understand the basics of good conversation - i.e. asking the other person questions, giving others recognition and thanks in exchange for something they need. The sources of these poor communication skills have been downright shocking to me.  For those of you who know me, you know I love a good conversation, I love to help people, and I love seeing new technology so I'll talk to just about anyone but I don't really love being talked at or spending a lot of time only to feel like it went unrecognized. And it's a pretty good way of ensuring I won't come back to the table later.

The other interesting thing that I've noticed about many people who are professed 'communicators' is that they have very little ability to pick up on others' cues whether that consists of arm crossing, staring at the ceiling, or shifting their body weight in physical interactions or their completely dead silence from the other end of the phone, IM chat, or Twitter conversation. It is actually fascinating to me because part of the hallmark of a great communicator is an intuitive understanding of the reaction they are getting and the ability to adjust their own technique to that. This is admittedly a hard skill to learn in a classroom and it requires a level of self-awareness that takes time to attain but it is absolutely critical if you want to be an effective communicator.  The irony is that for the last few decades, communications degrees can be earned without really being a good communicator, leaving people looking like great communications professionals on paper who don't have the skills necessary to be effective.

So here is my plea. Please consider the following when trying to influence someone:

• If you ask for someone's time or attention, say thank you.
• Before you start speaking about what you do, ask others what they are interested in.
• Tailor your conversation to the other person's interests.
• Pause occasionally to check in and get reaction... if they don't have much, they are likely not that engaged... so ask again what they find most interesting about the topic and adjust.
• Ask the other person about their business/goals.
• Don't ask for more than is reasonable to get for free. If you use someone's deep expertise, pay them for it either in exposure, money, or referrals.

And yes, some of these lessons we should have learned in kindergarten.  Thanking people takes time. Build that in to your schedule. And yes - all of us occasionally get pressed for time, forget, etc. There have been times that I forget my manners too so we are all responsible for giving each other the occasional hall pass but generally, try to care about the people you ask to do something and try to give something back to them in exchange. While it's the right thing to do... it's also the only way to really be influential.

The Company Your Targets Keep

In the past, because relationships and influences used to be so hidden from view, we had few options but to go directly to the person we were hoping to influence - whether to sell them something, convince them of a course of action, get support, etc.  Interestingly enough, except for people who are primed and ready to be influenced that tactic doesn't work all that well.

So this is where advertising has traditionally come in - something that gets in front of people, makes them aware, and warms them up.  But it also annoys most people because it gets in the way of something else they are trying to do. Social media is so effective because it allows people to get exposure and 'warm up' to ideas, products, or you through a trusted source - their existing connections. As an individual that is much more natural and much less forced. People are also much less likely to throw up barriers and a defenses against information when it comes from a trusted source and it is in a context that makes sense.

All of this suggests to me that if you are trying to get someone to try something, change their minds, or think differently.... going direct may not be the most effective way to do it, although that seems counter-intuitive. Instead, find the company your targets keep. Start with the people in your targets circle who are receptive to your message. Surround and envelop that target with company that is supportive of your goals. It's called triangulation and it works pretty well, especially if you are looking to build long-term, trusted relationships.  If you are looking for a quick transaction, it's probably not a good method for you because it does takes investment and thought.

I've been having the network conversation with more and more organizations - urging them to think about all of the influencers that surround their core target.  No person or organization exists in a vacuum. The more that they get your message from different parties that they trust, the more likely they will be proactively interested in your message.  I believe that this dynamic will make corporate partnerships even more of a strategic differentiator than they are today. It will also force companies to re-assess how cooperative they are in their markets and with competitors because any tactics seen as negative will reverberate and break down a web of trust around their targets.

Why does trust matter so much in today's business relationships? Well, Chris Brogan & Julien Smith can tell you but here's my perspective:

- The speed of information flow is increasing very rapidly which is causing decision cycle times to decrease rapidly. In an environment where people do not have the time to ponder and weigh options, they rely more and more on the trust they have in various information sources.

- High-trust relationships reduce pressures - whether that is performance pressure or margin pressure or time pressure. Trust relationships typically have a high degree of empathy and forgiveness which keeps the parties loyal to a relationship even when things go wrong - and it reduces negative confrontations.

Who are you trying to convince of something? Have you thought of your relationships with all of the parties in your targets network of influence?

It's 2009 - Do You Know Where Your Customers Are?

With the exploding number of modes of communication channels, do you understand how and how often your customers are being contacted? Marketing departments do a pretty good job of tracking prospects via website hits, webinars, & conferences...and CRM systems track communications that employees choose to synch with them, but that has pretty high overhead so it is likely that only formal correspondence gets tracked. But what about IM, what about Facebook, what about blogs & comments, what about Twitter, what about LinkedIn?  What about all those short calls and emails that collectively demonstrate a close relationship but individually are not worth registering?

Increasingly the customers that your employees have the closest relationship with are 'unseen' by the company because they cross-over between business and personal and the communications happen outside of the formal channels... and that should be encouraged, but you should also know about it as it represents both opportunity and risk to your business.

The other issue is that people are increasingly overwhelmed with all the channels of communications available and it is left largely to individuals to decide for themselves how to interact with business partners. But how people choose to interact may have significant implications for how the relationship develops and then is maintained.  And what if your marketing, sales, and support organizations are all choosing different methods?  That then makes customers have dramatically different experiences across their lifetime with your company...which is a huge risk because if they are given communications (and therefore relationship) expectations by marketing that are not played out once they are customers, they will likely be unhappy.

The question I have for companies is: Do your communications with various constituent bases align with your business strategy? Do you formally train or encourage employees to interact is specific ways with specific audiences...or are you just scrambling to try to use everything available without much thought as to whether that really supports your strategy?  Twitter is not for everyone...but neither is email. It all depends what kind of relationship you need to achieve your business goals.

Think about it...and then figure out whether the communications that are happening really supports your strategy.  Social network analysis and other tools can help figure out what is happening in your company today - and give you a good idea of what might need to be better aligned. This is particularly critical if you are restructuring and reorganizing as customers often are often the unintended victims of upheaval.