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$1 Trillion of Social Media: #TChat Preview

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Hello, World of Work! McKinsey has spoken, and I am listening: Social technologies are valued between $900 billion and $1.3 trillion by virtue of pushing social interactions to Internet speed, with the attendant increases in productivity, collaboration and understanding of employee and consumer behavior.

Do you buy it, or don’t you? For you TalentCulture World of Work aficionados, what matters is not that we believe it’s beneficial; the employee and employer experiences are what in fact matter. What’s the result of the speeding up of social interchanges in the world of work? There’s lots to look at there, and clearly, there’s a business opportunity in finding ways to morph social tech into business tech.

Here at #TChat, we’re accustomed to social in our personal lives, but it’s one thing to use Facebook with friends and, at work, the enterprise Facebook-style interaction tool, Yammer. Facebook isn’t really a productivity tool, but a way to maintain loose bonds with friends.

Companies investing in Yammer want something very different: productivity. And many companies worry that employees waste time on social media, which is why Yammer and other related systems are so appealing: These keep all interchanges within the firewall. No Gchat, Skype or IM, only Lync and Yammer: so much more control. But then, where’s the social magic? Will only the loud and super-exuberant types use corporate social tools?

We think about these things at TalentCulture. Then, we want to talk about them. So here are the questions for this week’s #TChat about social tools and their role in the workplace:

Q1: Social tech is valued upwards of $1.3 trillion. Where’s the greatest biz opportunity in the next few years?

Q2: Currently only 5% of U.S. online content sharing happens on social media. Will this change?

Q3: How do leaders overcome the perception that employees “waste” their time on social media?

Q4: Will social media only be valued by extroverted sharing & collaborative people? Is it an ego thing?

Q5: What are the best social tech tools for recruiting, onboarding, learning, performance, retention & mobility?

Feeling social yet? Then join us Wednesday for #TChat. That’s Sept. 19, on Twitter, from 7-8pm ET (6-7pm CT, 4-5pm PT, or wherever you are). Look for yours truly (@MeghanMBiro) and Kevin W. Grossman (@KevinWGrossman) on the #TChat stream. Your tweets — they bring us back, every time. And guess “hoo” else is coming to #TChat: Hootsuite.

We welcome this week’s #TChat guest moderator, Ambrosia Humphrey (@hambrody), Hootsuite’s director of human resources. Guests Ben Watson, Hootsuite’s vice president of marketing (@bitpakkit), and Steve Johnson, Hootsuite’s chief revenue officer (@steve1johnson), will join us, too, to discuss the trillion dollars of social, and look for additional nuggets of wisdom from Sabrina Lavin and Kristine Naldoza, also members of Hootsuite’s HR team. Woot!

Image Credit: Pixabay

It is NOT Mandatory to Use Twitter

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The #TChat that took place Wednesday was titled, “#TChat Communication Tools: You Can’t Use Them All”.   Specifically, take a look at the questions that were posed and discussed.  The focus of this blog post is on question #2, “how do you as a marketer, recruiter, leader or HR pro, pick and choose how to collaborate with your colleagues?”

I am going to attempt to answer this question from my perspective as a human resources expert, because after all that’s where I came from and that’s where my brain is 24-7.

As a starting point, we all know that it is absolutely critical and crucial for business to be strategically leveraging social media.  We also know that approximately 8 gazillion social media platforms exist today, so it’s pretty easy to get confused about which ones are the best, and ultimately which ones to use.  You simply can’t use them all, but you can certainly identify which ones should work best for you.

A Jeff Waldman Psychology Factoid…

I have been saying the same thing to clients since email became mainstream, and that is, “it doesn’t matter what methods of communication you use, face-to-face is and will ALWAYS be king”.  It allows people to pick up on body language—visual cues that are so critical to effective and clear communication.  BUT… yes always a but… you can’t always be face-to-face with someone, especially in today’s highly complex world so it’s as important to complement the face-to-face by using non-visual communication tools.  It’s imperative that such tools effectively satisfy the unique factors (i.e. skills and interests) of those that you work with.  The rest of this blog post is dedicated to talking about a few of these factors.

In thinking about what the factors are, I identified many but then saw that they could all be grouped into 3 categories.  They are physical location, organizational culture and employer brand.

Physical Location

Our business community is global.  Within corporate environments, gone are the days where every single employee works under 1 physical roof.  It’s common for teams to be physically located in various countries around the world, and to have never spent a second together in the same room.

Organizational Culture

How is information naturally shared?  How organizations are structured and the demographic make-up of their workforces can significantly impact which tools will and will not work.  Does your organization support and enable open collaboration between departments, or are departments largely operating in silos?  Do you think a tool like Yammer, which is a highly effective collaboration tool, would work in a bureaucracy?  Or, do you think face-to-face meetings as the primary information sharing channel would effectively work in organizations that are staffed predominantly with Gen Ys?

Employer Brand

We live in a “branded” world with employer brand being a key one.  In effect, how an organization operates, how they are structured, and how they support, enable and measure success are key elements that define their employer brand.  These elements are also key drivers of who they attract as prospective employees.  Work and personal are more intertwined today than ever in the history of the organized corporate world.  As such, corporate workers are placing more importance on how a business operates (i.e. the internal infrastructure, the machinery/tools that run the business) than ever before.

If your organization employs traditional methods of communication then you’ll attract prospective employees who are naturally comfortable and interested in this form of communication.  The same can be said for people who love using leading edge tools.

At The End of the Day…

It was interesting to reflect on last night’s #TChat.  The one glaring thing that I realized is how many different methods of communication I use in my own life, and the final count was astounding.  I couldn’t even imagine how corporations (who are highly complex entities) could survive if they used too many communication tools.

So, where I’m going with this is regardless of what your employer brand is, regardless of where your employees reside, and regardless of your organizational culture, one thing remains consistent with all organizations.  That one thing is “simplicity”.  Keep things simple, do not over-complicate by using too many mediums of communication.  Pick the select few that work the best, stick with them and maximize what they can do for you.

By the way, it isn’t mandatory that I use Twitter… BUT… I use it because it has enabled me to effectively build and promote my personal brand, make awesome new business contacts and socialize with people from all 4 corners of the globe on mutually common interests.  It’s been a huge win-win for me.

My Communication Channels

There are quite a few but here they are:

Collaborative Communication Car Pool Fast Lane: #TChat Recap

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I got the invite to chill with someone. And that’s when it hit me: there’s just too much information, too many content curation tools, too many sharing tools, too many communications tools that don’t really help me communicate. Whirlwind. Zoom. Zis-boom-ba. Turn the fire hose off and get me a real drink.

Sure, early adopters are compelled by their very nature to keep the fire hose on their hip next to their smart phones — like six-shooters ready for action. We want to experiment with innovative ideas, build on them and launch our own.

But do we really need this much action and interaction? Or is it creating a lack thereof? For me personally, I probably experimented with over 10 new “communications” tools in 2011, 9 of which I’ll never use again. I’m sure there are dozens more I’ve never even heard of.

When you ask the question, “How many communication tools/services do you use daily both in business and pleasure?,” my answer is, “Too many and not well enough.” I would argue that’s the case for most of us — tasting and playing and using less than 5%-10% of the communications tool capacity no better than an email see-saw. New and old services alike need utilization that sticks, because if you don’t use it regularly, you kill it, and that’s not what the founders of new tools want to hear. That’s why it’s highly subjective and contextual, finding the right daily communication tools that help move life along and not hinder it.

Facebook doesn’t have to worry about that. Neither does Twitter or LinkedIn. But all are anchored in email, the long-standing messy message moving tool. Not a communications tool, a messy message moving tool. The novelty wore off for me in the early 1990s when I worked at San Jose State University and we used email to push messages back and forth. Because it was fun and we could do it. Woot.

Have you ever tried to have a collaborative conversation via email? I know you have. It’s painfully disruptive and a time sink. Back and forth. Wait. Back and forth. Wait. Back and forth.

Hold the friggin’ phone. Literally — hold the phone and call me. It’s easier that way and more productive. Three others that I’ve found for all my iterative work worlds are Yammer and Skype and SocialEars. I’m sure you have your favorites as well. If you’re in a bigger company, your HR software might even have social communication functionality.

Let’s kill email like I want to kill the resume. Please. And no, I’m not a big texter either since I always text in complete English sentences like critical thinking homies. Word.

The good news is that the #TChat collaborative communication car pool fast lane is one that has remained open for over a year now, and the sharing and comparing and contrasting and venting and networking and catching up every week about all things world of work has made the information superhighway a little easier to traverse.

Then again, another value of virtual collaboration and online communication is that I can turn it off and actually get some real creative work done.

Don’t look at me that way. Get back to work. We’ve got communication innovations to invent.

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Thank you to everyone who joined us last night! Welcome to 2012 #TChat! If you missed the preview, you can read it here.

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#TChat Communication Tools: You Can't Use Them ALL

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What’s your morning communications, social media routine like? Mine’s getting more complicated every day. Personally, just email requires checking at least three accounts on three devices. At least one is Gmail, so I green-light Gmail chat and also Google+. Then it’s on to open a Skype window – many clients, friends reach me through Skype instant message. And to make sure I’m truly open, AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo Messenger are active, too. They’re a bit old-school, but a few of my clients still use them, so it’s not really negotiable in my world.  Then it’s on to Yammer to check up on the latest and greatest with my teams.

Twitter comes next. Hootsuite, Old School “regular” Twitter, and TweetChat  helps me monitor multiple Twitter streams and also makes it simple to cross-populate Facebook and LinkedIn with content. Another communications tool I’ve been checking out is the open-source Trillian, which automates the  management of multiple chat clients on both desktop and phone.

When it comes to corporate communications, it’s a whole new ball of wax, Facebook page admins, several WordPress log-ins, all the email and communications platforms like MailChimp, Constant Contact, AWeber and more. There are even ways to communicate via song (Spotify) and visual interest (Pinterest). Granted, not all of these apply to professionalism, but in our connected world, they sure do influence it.

The new tools can also be overwhelming; it’s a matter of choosing and experimenting. But when do we finally just pick and stop experimenting? What works best for workplace collaboration and productivity? Do you stop communicating? Ever?

Actually, no. Facebook is saved for stolen moments between calls and meetings on my end. I’m trying to use it more frequently, and in a way that does not make my friends have to deal with all my tweets (always a work in progress). Let’s not forget Facebook messaging – again, I’m trying to make it work into my weekly routine. And LinkedIn – the ole social standby – is a great business communications tool, so there’s always a browser tab open for it. Mind you, this is all before my first cup of coffee.

Does your social blend in a way that feels comfortable and consistent yet? Do you sense a theme emerging here? I think many people are trying to determine the very best way to manage communications tools both for  business and for pleasure.

The irony: in this flurry of activity, there hasn’t been  a single F2F social interaction, not even a cat sitting on the keyboard. Over the past year, actual live phone conversations have dropped off a tad. I’ve been making a point to schedule more meetings in person and to call people via Skype, Google Voice, or cell. Sometimes there is simply no time for in-person meetings. I live my business and social life, increasingly, in the world of social media. Some days it doesn’t seem healthy. Some days it feels just right. Some days I wonder how I ever existed without it. Some days I long for more IRL “In Real Life” contact with people.

In this week’s TalentCulture World of Work #TChat – brought to you through the wonders of social media, of course – we’re looking at the good, the bad and the ugly of social communication and workplace collaboration tools. The beauty of  Twitter Chats are clear – hundreds of people worldwide can have a discussion in real time, regardless of physical location – but it’s not clear which other social and workplace communications tools deliver a similar value.

And we have a hashtag where people can show up and share content, insight and fun with us 24.7. It’s become a unique online community and we look forward to continuing the conversation this year. We are going with the connection flow and enjoying every moment.

So let’s come together to explore which communications tools add value and which merely distract us from being productive. Because you can’t use them all. Or can you? Join us Wednesday night on #TChat The World of Work January 18th from 7-8 pm ET (6-7 CT, 4-5 pm PT), where social media and communication topics are in the hot seat. Join me, Kevin Grossman, Maren Hogan, Sean Charles and Kyle Lagunas for a very special #TChat.

Questions we’ll be discussing this week are here: