Making Social Media Work: the answer is STOIC

For the final project / thesis that will, in theory, get me an MBA, I have been conducting research on how organisations successfully implement social media, or Web 2.0, or Enterprise 2.0.  There are some interesting findings, not least of which is that if you refer to 'New Technologies' - people are interested; but 'Social Media' is still a dirty word and not likely to get much uptake of a survey by those not in the business.

I am working on rewriting the thesis to make it palatable for general consumption, which will no doubt mean a lot of editing to reduce the 63000 words to something people will want to actually read.  The cover, which is more palatable and a tag cloud of all the 63000 words, is this:

However, until I get around to rewriting it, I feel there are some issues of value that should be shared now.

The Executive Summary says most of it quite succinctly...more or less as follows....

Social media and Enterprise 2.0 are terms which have suffered from intense hype in recent years in a way that has polarised many in business into being either evangelists for the new systems or laggards who believe social media is about wasting time.

The new systems, which include a range of tools from blogs and wikis to social networks and virtual worlds, are technologies that allow users to collaborate together and to create and share content in ways that were impossible just a few years ago.

The business benefits of Enterprise 2.0, a term that usually refers to the internal use of collaboration software in an organisation for knowledge sharing and collaboration, have been described in many case studies by authors ranging from Andrew McAfee of Harvard Business School and Gartner Research to McKinsey and Gary Hamel.  Financial ROI is often hard to show, however, becoming a stumbling block in encouraging adoption of the new technology.

The focus of this report has been to conduct research on the successes and failures in adopting Enterprise 2.0 and learn lessons that can be applied to other organisations hoping to jump on the social media bandwagon.

Following a study of literature that encompasses the diffusion of innovations, the effect of culture on behaviour, network theory, communications methods and change, a survey was created to help find answers to the questions left hanging by the theories. The survey was followed up by a range of personal interviews to gain insight in to survey data.

The findings from the research were then condensed into five key areas that organisations need to address when implementing Enterprise 2.0, summarised with the acronym: STOIC.

Strategise: organisations need to think what it is they want to get from social media – is it for sharing knowledge or engaging with customers?  What audiences do they hope to reach and is social media the best method for doing that?  Who should be responsible and how should it blend with their other duties?

Trust: organisations need to trust their employees.  They need to trust that confidential information will not be leaked any more than it already can be and that most employees are responsible adults who only want to do their jobs better, more efficiently and with improved results. Let them.

Open access: to social media sites, to internal networks.  Organisations that lock down IT access or prevent certain groups from taking part in knowledge sharing show no competitive advantage over their rivals that have embraced Enterprise 2.0.  If an employee wastes time on Facebook, this is a performance management issue, not an issue to justify blocking access to Facebook through IT.

Incentivise: be this through creating personal goals and objectives, encouraging knowledge sharing or showing that the leadership are listening and approve, everyone needs to see ‘what is in it for them’.  Whatever that is will be different for each organisation, but to get greater uptake, employees need to be motivated to join in.

Champion: whether the champion is a member of the senior management team or a middle manager, the appointment of a champion sends a signal to the rest of the organisation that it is taking Enterprise 2.0 seriously, and becomes a focus for queries and hand-holding across the organisation, encouraging individuals and different teams to get on board.

 These five areas are key.  If an organisation follows the five-step STOIC process, it will free itself from the emotional distress of trying and failing with Enterprise 2.0.

The main points therefore are those five elements.  I imagine much of this is relevant to other internal change issues - certainly when involving innovations, but they are the issues affecting organisations hoping to engage internally. To engage, one needs communication. For communication, one needs communication tools.  The organisation's community (be they employees, alumni, members or other stakeholders) need to engage with those tools.   For this to happen, the organisation needs to follow the STOIC model.

I had expected the research to throw up other issues, such as that control must not reside with the IT Department. However, there were plenty of examples where the IT Departments proved to be supportive and nurtured use of these tools - and the only persistent comment made was regarding open access.

I shall post more on these issues over time...