Notes From New York: Internal Social Media

Last week, I had the opportunity to represent U.S. Bank at a meeting of Social Media.org, a council of like-minded professionals from large companies. The topic of our meeting was internal social media, or how we use social tools to connect employees. While I can’t share the details of the people or companies who made these statements, here are some of my favorite nuggets of knowledge that I brought home:



Finding expertise – There are people who need information. There are people who have information. In a big company, they may not be aware of who each other are… until the right tool allows them to connect.

Knowledge is power – This isn’t new, but an internal social network turns old dynamics upside down. Sharing knowledge gives you visibility and influence; hoarding knowledge makes you a non-entity. Anyone, anywhere in the organization, can share knowledge and build credibility based on what they know and how well they communicate it.

Leadership support is critical - While social media is a great democratizer, the voices of leaders (especially executives) resonate loudest. You don’t need every leader to be on board right away, but you do need someone to shine the beacon.

Leaders care what employees are saying – Gather key messages and themes from your internal social network and present it to leaders in a format they can use for their Monday meeting.
Asking questions – Even if the answer is in a FAQ somewhere, there is something important and inherently personal about asking a question of an online community. Give people that opportunity: Let them feel heard, valued, and supported through the act of asking and receiving an answer.

Trust your employees – Give real answers from real experts. If an employee is complaining about a benefit change, have a HR leader post a straight explanation of the rationale for the change. People may not agree with every policy, but they respect honesty. Don’t force a communications rep to be a messenger of vague platitudes.

Participation – When setting your expectations for participation, remember the 90-9-1 rule of online communities: 1% of members contribute original content, 9% comment or respond to content, and 90% are lurkers.

Conversations happen - If you’re concerned about giving employees access to social media, because they might have off-topic conversations or share incorrect info… remember that those conversations happen anyway in office hallways or on Facebook. Putting them on an internal social network gives you transparency, insight, a safe environment, and a chance to be part of the dialogue.

Blog your best news – Using a blog lets you brag and share your team’s accomplishments without blasting a self-promoting email to 200 people.



And, a few "Don'ts" -

Don’t design tools for the people who never use them. Find the people who are hungry to use social tools, and design with them in mind. Don’t waste your energy trying to please the people who don’t get it. They’ll adopt the tools eventually, when they’re left with no choice.


Don’t promote the tool for its own sake. Tell true, detailed stories about how social networking will make work easier, will make employees more effective, will solve real problems that people are facing today.

Don’t send everyone through the same training. Technical training should be optional, self-paced, and delivered at the time of need. Policies should be taught through examples: Offer a “social media challenge of the week” and ask employees how they would respond to a realistic scenario. Don’t make everyone sit through a boring class or click through a web-based course that they’ll instantly forget.



I expect more ideas to form as I continue going through my conference notes and having follow-up conversations with the people I met in New York.

Most striking to me was the similarity of our experiences. Even though we were in different companies, across different industries, using different technology, we all faced the same challenges. The adoption curve is steep, culture change is slow, and enterprise technology isn’t always nimble. But learning from each other, talking through our problems, and sharing our suggestions convinced me how important this work is. People are natural collaborators. We’re never going to achieve our best results working in silos, isolated from one another. It’s true for the tireless champions of internal social media at companies around the world, and it’s true for the employees we’re working to connect.

On tools and tools: A theory

Home improvement is not my forte. This weekend, I moved into a new house, and I wanted to try some little projects - assemble some particle board furniture, maybe hang a shelf or two. It was simple stuff that felt inspiringly doable.

I called my friend Becky and asked if I could borrow some tools.

"What do you need?" Becky asked.

I ran through my mental toolbox, which is very small.

"A screwdriver and a hammer," I responded. Familiar, easy to hold, easy to picture.

"If you're hanging stuff, you might want a cordless drill, a level, a tape measure, and..."

I stopped her. "No. Please, no."


Some people approach technology the way I approach home improvement - cautiously, fearfully, and eagerly reaching for the one or two tools that we can comfortably hold. It's not that we aren't smart or capable of using additional tools - but we're not quite ready for that learning period, that time of tension when the tool feels foreign and awkward. I know exactly how much damage I can cause with a screwdriver; a cordless drill in my unaccustomed hands might unleash an unstoppable (and portable!) torrent of destruction.

New and additional tools also make it more difficult to blame our shortfalls on a lack of proper tools. For example, I knew that if I borrowed Becky's level, I would have no excuse when my shelves were hung at an unfortunate angle. The blame would rest solely on my shoulders, because I had a level and either chose not to use it or (perhaps worse) used it improperly. In a world with no level, I could shrug off the crooked shelf and say I did the best I could, with the limited tools I had. Likewise, an employee without access to a good content management system can easily blame the lack of tools for the disorganized mess of files on his or her desktop.

So, how do we move past this mental model? How do we present an array of tools to our users and have them deftly and confidently select the right one, do the task at hand, and excitedly check out the shiny new tools we're working on?

* Teach people about their tools. Make sure the learning is customizable and reaches the audience at the appropriate level. A prolific social media user will not need a primer on the differences between Twitter and FaceBook. A newbie might need an explanation, a demo, a hands-on experience, and a cheat sheet for quick reference.
* Make expectations abundantly clear. If you want people to use e-mail for certain types of conversations, instant message for others, and make phone calls for other situations - explicitly say so. Offer usage guidelines and concrete examples. Don't expect everyone to walk in with a finely honed sense of netiquette.
* Give feedback. You tried teaching, but some people just didn't get it. Maybe they send giant, texty e-mail missives without a single paragraph break. Perhaps they use the reply-all feature when it's just not appropriate. Or maybe their writing is so rife with acronyms that it reads like a 13-year-old's text message. If you have the skill and eye to identify these faux-pas, embrace it. Pass on the gift in the form of constructive, timely feedback directly to the person who made the error. If you had spinach in your teeth, wouldn't you hope somebody would tell you? Extend this courtesy to your colleagues.
* Make it safe to fail. Take it a step further and embrace failures. Learn from them. Celebrate them. Praise people for their contributions to the organization's learning. This is good advice all around, but it's especially important when people are trying out new tools and getting past the discomfort of holding something new and unwieldy in their hands.

Now if someone could convince my landlord of that last one, I'd like to get my hands on a power drill.