Another great resource

I attended an event in Boston this morning that was all about social media, Web 2.0, etc. There was an interesting presentation on the ROI from marketing, but most of what was said could be applied to social media -- since so much of marketing involves social media these days. In light of this presentation, you could make a good case that social media is seen as a must-have in an organization, rather than a nice-to-have, precisely to the degree that it results (real or imagined) in more revenue (directly or indirectly).

I wonder how much cash value concepts like "community" and "building brand" have to CFOs and CEOs if their corporate social media becomes an end unto itself, rather than a means to an end (more revenue)? Part of me thinks that the social media projects in corporate America that survive and thrive into the next decade will be those with clear, measurable results. This shouldn't kill creativity and community, but just hold them accountable in some way (however defined). Think of the dot-coms of the late 1990s: they claimed that companies shouldn't be valued on profits alone, and, well, they mostly went out of business.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong, or just partly right. Anyone care to set me straight?

Social Media vs Knowledge Management

I just read an interesting post here:

Social Media vs. Knowledge Management: A Generational War

It's long and I don't have time now to quote from it or summarize it, but I recommend reading it.

Old school for new media

One of the things I'm noticing as a wiki community manager is that my role is a lot more like teaching than I thought. That's generally a good thing, since I developed my own set of best practices for the classroom, and these transfer remarkably well to projects like this in the corporate world.

I used to teach high school, and one of the things I was constantly doing was teaching the same concept in different ways to different students -- and then teaching it again after the students came back from a long weekend! Same as the wiki. Different people learn in different ways and bring different points of view to the table. All that enriches the experience of the larger group.

My experience as a teacher also taught me that I have my blind spots. Same as the wiki. Every week one of my colleagues here at the company asks me about something I never anticipated. One good example is why they couldn't see their wiki tasks as a calendar instead of as a list. As a self-proclaimed 'words guy,' the thought of using a calendar to manage my tasks never occurred to me. Agility matters in the business world as much as it matters in education.

There are other similarities between rolling out a wiki (and educating users on the best way to leverage it) and teaching about the best ways to dive deeply into History or Literature. But I wonder if our esteemed readers have had experiences in a previous professional life that they've been able to leverage in the world of social media.

Come on now, don't be shy...

Weaving a tangled web

When I was a kid and did something really wrong, I used to hear my mother tell me, finger wagging, "What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." I think she's right, even if I didn't at the time, but now I wonder if weaving a tangled web isn't so bad when it comes to wikis.

Here's what I mean: In the old, pre-Internet days, there was a lot of point-to-point communication. You sent Joe a letter, telegraph, etc., and he sent you one back. Today we can weave complex (tangled?) webs of communication, pulling in expertise from all corners, as we gather information, and we can go back to those webs as we act on information received. It's a giant feedback loop that, if we're lucky, continually enriches the web and makes it stronger.

Not to get all Age of Aquarius about it, but this is how I feel a healthy wiki should work. It should be a web, or even an ecosystem, where all the parts work together, where the whole is more than the sum of the parts. I hope Ted and I can create that sort of web with you, our readers, as we share our individual pains and joys in helping make our work environment a place that rewards sharers and collaborators.

My Inspiration

The idea for this blog came from Chuck Hollis' blog, A Journey In Social Media. That's a really good title, and I tried not to rip it off too closely when creating this one.

I started in my wiki community manager role in the summer of 2008, and as I immersed myself in all the resources I could find, I came across Chuck's blog. It was actually linked to from Jive's materials, and I immediately realized how valuable reading about his company's experience would be to me and my company's efforts.

So, giving credit where credit is due: to read the original, and much more complete story of a company implementing social media internally, check out A Journey In Social Media.

Tired of Technology Issues

I know I have not started at the beginning, but if I wait until I have told the backstory, I'll be even further behind will not get started posting about what is current.

And what's current is a crapload of technology issues that have me feeling like a full time system administrator for the past few weeks. That's not supposed to be my job, not full-time, but when the tool is not working as it should you do what you can to resolve the issues.

Right now I am wrestling with some display bugs. I hate wasting my time on this stuff. Why can't software just work right?

OK, enough whining. Back to fixing it.

Co-Authors

I've never had co-authors on a blog before. This will be fun and should be more of a dialogue instead of the monologue most blogs become (despite our pleas for comments to make this interactive, we know only a few will actually post comments).

Maybe it will be like exercising with a partner, too, where you feel pushed to keep up with the program because you know someone knows whether you did or not. That could be good, too.

We'll probably open this blog up to more authors from UBM over time, too. That would be good for providing different perspectives on our story.

A good soldier

I'm working with Ted on the rollout of our wiki for one particular business unit. We have our first steering committee meeting today. What I like is that the committee is made up of a motley crew (in a good way) of folks from across the business: HR, Sales, Web, Marketing -- even our CEO. I think this 'big tent' approach will help us get the buy-in we need to succeed.

We'll also be dealing with the ever-important issue of changing the way people work. The wiki will be disruptive, no doubt. Anyone out there have any insights on managing those individual work transitions from old to wiki?

Getting Started

We're getting started with social media at our media company. We're learning to walk the talk. In this blog we'd like to share our story, both so others can learn from it (our successes and mistakes), and so we can find others we can learn from. By putting our story out there, we hope people who share our challenges will find us... and give us a hand!