How To Make Social Media A Catalyst For Collaboration
Aug 19th, 2009 by David Svet
My previous post proposed the idea that social media could be used to foster innovation within your company. So how should you go about doing such a thing? Most people look to the tools first. Social media tools are new and exciting. The people who use them are often seen as innovators. However, you’re better off looking at the people and process than focusing on the tools.
The real issue is behavioral. The desired behavior is collaboration. It happens best in small groups. Social media enables the formation of small groups by facilitating communication unbound by most space and time constraints. No waiting for meetings. No waiting for reports. No waiting for conference rooms, or printers, or couriers. You just get lots of rapid communication between team members, documented and available 7/24.
The key is finding the people who will collaborate and putting them together with a shared mission, clear operating process, and appropriate rewards. No mean feat, but not as hard as it sounds if you look at the behavior of the potential team members. A recent study by Cisco Systems may be the first to look at collaborative behavior in the workplace in an effort to understand how social media can facilitate success. The study’s most important finding is that company culture plays as much of a role in successful collaboration as the tools. Cisco also identified 4 kinds of collaborators:
- Collaboration Enthusiasts
- Comfortable Collaborators
- Reluctant Collaborators
- Collaboration Laggards
While it is important to accept that not everyone will collaborate, it’s also important to select team members from among those who will — Collaboration Enthusiasts and Comfortable Collaborators. The study found that “the most enthusiastic users are managers in for-profit companies who have held their jobs for 3 to 9 years.” But teams also benefited from being in an environment where executives also modeled the desirable behaviors.
Beyond personal interest and executive role models, collaboration is more effective with a defined process for communicating — all agreeing on tools and methodologies, as well as a defined process for tracking — keeping use logs. Finally, direct rewards for successful collaboration is the last key element — bonuses, time off, trips, or accolades as appropriate tied to behavior.
So, this isn’t rocket science to introduce in your company, but could pay dividends as if it were. Find people who are enthused and already using social media at home. That’s a pretty big pool according to a recent report by Forrester Research. It says more than 75% of the US is participating in social media in some way:
- 21% = Creators – Publish blogs, web site, video etc.
- 37% = Critics – Post product ratings, blog comments, contribute to online forums etc.
- 19% = Collectors – Subscribe to RSS feeds, add tags to web sites, phots etc.
- 35% = Joiners – Maintain profiles on or visit social networking sites
- 69% = Spectators – Read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch videos from other user etc.
- 25% = Inactive – Do none of the above.
Then give your new recruits a clear mission. Model the behavior you want them to demonstrate. Provide an agreed upon set of social media tools and a working process. Track the interaction and reward the successes. Others will join in quickly when they see success rewarded. Even some of the Reluctant and Laggard cohorts will join the fold.
Will time get wasted? Maybe. Will the process be abused? Possibly. That’s why you should start with a small team of informed enthusiasts. They will know how to act and appreciate the new opportunity to shine. Everything has a learning curve. Start slowly. Develop the process and document a set of guidelines that work for your organization. Reward good behavior and put a quick halt to any over indulgence that may arise. You’ll be rewarded with innovation and new level of competitiveness.
Spurspectives,
Thanks for your continuing stream of thoughtful postings on social media. I work for a small/medium sized museum and have been leading the movement here to incorporate social media tools. In my experience only one out of every four people I invite into this communications process end up contributing. But those who do are generally enthusiastic, and end up recruiting others as well.
Michael Lapides
Curator of Photography and Director of Digital Initiatives
New Bedford Whaling Museum
Michael,
Thank you for your kind words and interest. Yes, one in four enthusiastic participants is about right, particularly in a history museum. But, man do you have the content to use in your effort! Wow! The Fortier collection alone is a goldmine. You could develop quite the following and dialogue with what you have available. Really fun stuff!
David Svet, CEO
Spur Communications
I also like advocating, “Learn By Doing”. Training is nice…for the basics, but like you said, giving new recruits a mission and tools helps.
Allow it to be sandbox, be tolerant of mistakes, and letting people figure out what works for them is a great way.
People collaborate and communicate in different ways, so letting them experiment helps them find what feels right.
A sandbox is a great metaphor, Ben. Creating a collaborative environment for learning and sharing helps a bunch. It’s really amazing to watch something like this when it really starts to produce results.
Great post David, it’s actually what we’re going through right now as a company recently committed to a social media effort. Great advice on collaboration and personally affirming as well, as this is the route we’re trying to take. But it is tough, especially in smaller companies, to get people engaged. As you mentioned-small, enthusiastic teams are the place to start and we’ve seen some successes, however small or large, with that mentality.
Thanks, Lee. I understand your growing pains. It’s something we see in a lot of organizations. Many times it comes down to having a willingness to move away from a command and control management process and embrace a flat, distributed model that rewards participation and reporting. If you reward positive behavior and publicly celebrate success, the behavior will likely be repeated. It’s hard to let go, especially when you are the boss. The only way this works is if the boss can become the head cheerleader.