digital workplace
Dear Senior Manager – please play nicely in our social channels #internalcomms #intranet #socialmedia
If I had to give a senior manager a bit of advice about how to be successful in using social channels on our intranet, it would be something like this:
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The critical success factor for engaging in a social channel as a senior manager is getting the tone of your engagement right. You need to ensure that you maintain the right balance between being authoritative as a senior manager and being an individual engaging in a conversation with another individual. Influence in social channels is something you earn over time by engaging in the right way and not something automatically conferred upon you because of your role in the organisation.
Influence comes from being part of the conversation, not part of the establishment.
It is also important to accept that your people need to collaborate in social channels to be effective in their jobs – they need to trust that you endorse this activity and that they are not being judged negatively for being active participants. Your early interactions, as a senior manager, will be critical to the health of social collaboration by your people going forward.
The following points should help you find the right tone in your responses. When responding to an individual in a social channel, you should never:
- preach at them or talk down to them
- hide behind quotes from company literature or use management speak as a surrogate for authentic engagement
- use jargon, abbreviations and marketing/business language
- throw your weight around and act in a heavy handed manner because of your position in the company.
You should always:
- listen first
- be honest, open and authentic in all your responses – which includes owning up to mistakes as quickly as possible
- deal with negative sentiment head on – ignoring negative sentiment inevitably results in it spiralling out of control – remember … negative sentiment almost always comes from an un-met need which you can probably meet
- stick around and follow-up on comments you might make in a given conversation – making a comment and then leaving is not engaging in a conversation.
In conversation: social media and corporate culture
The fourth in the series of in conversation with Red Sky Vision talking about social media and corporate culture. It’s quite long (6 mins: 53 sec) but I think it’s quite interesting (I would wouldn’t I 
).
In conversation: the impact of social media on internal comms #internalcomms
The third in the series of in conversation with Red Sky Vision talking about the impact of social media on internal communications. The conversation weaves around the changing role of internal comms and how and why internal comms people can thrive in the social space.
In conversation with Richard Dennison – Social Media and Internal Communications from Red Sky Vision on Vimeo.
In conversation: social media and the BT Intranet
The second in the series of in conversations with Red Sky Vision – this time a short sound bite or two about why we introduced social media onto the BT Intranet (this one is much shorter … only 1 min 20 sec ).
In conversation with Richard Dennison – Social Media and the BT Intranet from Red Sky Vision on Vimeo.
In conversation: the importance of social media in a business context
Following the great feedback received for Red Sky Vision’s fantastic Social Media @ Work video, I was looking through the interview footage of me which didn’t make it into the final film (there was quite a lot of it because when you get me started on social media it’s impossible to shut me up!) … and wondered if it might be possible to make these cuttings into a series of short videos – it seemed a shame to waste them and recycling is so important these days!
So, Red Sky worked their magic and the result is six short films entitled: In conversation with … in which I get to stand atop my soapbox and spew forth on various topics. The films vary in length and, because they are swept up from the cutting room floor, they are a bit bitty at times. Nonetheless, I hope you find time to watch and enjoy them …
The first video is some of my random views on the importance of social media in a business context.
In conversation with Richard Dennison – Why is social media important in a business context from Red Sky Vision on Vimeo.
[If for any reason you can't see the embedded video above, you can view it on the Vimeo site]
Wondering about intranet evolution …
Following a lively conversation on the Thought Farmer blog, I was wondering about the relationship between the thing we call the intranet and the digital workplace. Which model below looks right to you?
