Social Media - The Evolution:

• General business perceptions is that Facebook, Twitter, etc. is a waste of time, but social media/interaction is still valuable - need to find the proper niche
• we work in a knowledge economy now - quick innovation key - bringing together ideas quickly is a business differentiator
• email problems - black box to black box discussion; if you don't know who to go to you're stuck, if you get a response, not everyone else gets the solution
• how people use these technologies is not an IT problem - it's more a marketing/HR issue if the company doesn't want to use facebook, etc
  • for example, IT doesn't govern or generate analytics on telephone, cellphone, etc usage - so why facebook?
• "blocking facebook is like putting your finger in your ear and singing loudly" (trying to ignore the problem)
• usage of web is evolving - used to be a lot of little touches - searches, news, etc - now people spending more time on certain sites tuned to social networks

• there is a need for corporate "digital sensitivity" training - using social media is not inherently bad; in many cases it's just another communication tool - one that's good at what it does and can be leveraged and useful for business usage -- but how the tool is used isn't the fault of the tool; if someone uses it for inappropriate, non-business related purposes, that's not the technology's fault, it's the user's fault
• a lot of what users do with social media are already covered in existing HR policies; it's not an entirely new and uncovered area - human and b2b interaction is typically covered by HR;
• social media guideline - "don't be a jerk", "if you would be embarassed showing your mom, edit it"
• at Transwestern the marketing department led the social media policy initiative
• focus on education of staff more so than just constantly policing
• think about the well intentioned employee that does something against policy - ex linkedin has a recommendation tool - but if your policy is not to provide letters of recommendation without HR approval, or at all, how does that impact usage of linkedin

Value of social media:

• people are using social media already, whether we like it or not; this is a fundamental shift in how people are working
• Can use for customer service;
  
  • people don't want to call-in and wait for support anymore;
  • social media allows people to get info from amongst themselves
  • question is do you want to participate in that and help or sit back and let others define your messaging?
• potential replacement for some email - examples of what some companies are doing:
  
  • use social spaces within Sharepoint; example - allow profiles for people, someone else can tag a colleague as an expert and that info is useful to the next person who has a similar problem
  • employ project dashboard in sharepoint; with a blog for each project - instead of emails back-and-forth
  • set up wiki and self service for helpdesk tickets