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Thursday, January 03, 2008

GMnext: A preview of corporate communications in the social media era

General Motors’ GMnext effort may provide a glimpse into the future of corporate communications in a world becoming dominated more and more by social media.

Ostensibly the foundation of GM’s 100th birthday celebration, GMnext is really a launch pad for GM’s move into that amorphous Web 2.0 notion known as “the conversation.” Participation will include senior executives up to and including Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, front-line employees, and retirees. It will encompass GM social media properties (like blogs and wikis) as well as involvement with existing external social media venues. The fact that an old-guard, big-iron company is executing this communication strategy lends credence to the idea that organizations need to become integral parts of relevant online communities and conversations.

My podcast co-host, Neville Hobson, and I interviewed the communicators behind GMnext for a For Immediate Release interview. Scot Keller is directing the effort along with Global Communications Technology Director Christopher Barger. The interview arose from Barger’s outreach to us (along with other online writers) that kicked off with a press briefing toward the end of the year. We were also invited to participate in today’s launch, an ongoing 24-hour news-gathering event featuring online discussions with GM executives around the world, including CEO Wagoner.

GMnext hinges on the idea of dialogue among GM employees (past and present) and the company’s audiences around five critical issues: vehicle design,  current and emerging technologies, the environment, ideas and global corporate social responsibility. These are the factors, according to GM, that will influence the evolution of transportation in the 21st century. By employing social media as the hub of the effort, the company plans to give consumers more control of the conversation; new themes that arise from the conversation could even be added to the mix.

Listening to Scot and Christopher, it’s easy to find different ways to slice and dice GMnext. From my perspective, there are three elements that, taken together, demonstrate GM’s commitment to communicating through online dialogue:

• Internal—While GMnext doesn’t launch publicly until today, it has been underway internally for some time, beginning with a wiki designed to create a history of the company. Early plans called for commissioning a book, but it made more sense to let employees and retirees tell the company’s story, even if bits of that story may be less than the flattering portrayal a commissioned author would have prepared. Internal blogs also provide employees with a venue for participation in the discussion of where GM goes next. An initial internal blog generated some 13,000 visits during its first week of operation.
• GMNext.com—The official home of GMnext features blogs, podcasts, and videos—all with commenting enabled—for each of the five themes.
• Participation in other conversations—For me, the most exciting part of GMnext is that GM is actively encouraging its employees to participate on blogs, wikis, social networks and other forums where topics related to the five themes are being discussed. Much has been made lately of whether companies can participate in social networks. GM won’t try to participate as a brand, but rather let its flesh-and-blood employees represent the company in these spaces.

GM is well positioned to transition from its early social media efforts into this full-blown engagement model. The Fastlane and FYI blogs are models for other businesses, and Barger has helped GM dip its toe into the more intimate communication, such as GM’s sponsorship of a weekend retreat for listeners of the mommycast, “Manic Mommies,” among other things.

The evolution beyond GMnext is already planned. According to Keller and Barger, there is no plan to shut off the effort on September 17, 2008, the day after the company’s official birthday. Instead, the conversations will simply continue. Incidentally, there’s a lot more to GMnext than I am able to cover here, so be sure to visit the site for details.

GMnext will certainly produce its share of detractors. Social media launches by companies like Dell have been greeted with catcalls, only to be applauded later. And there are those who simply refuse to accept that company leaders should be engaged in social media conversations at all. (Dave Taylor, for example, believes that blogging conflicts with what he believes to be the CEO’s primary task of raising money for the company.) Barger is particularly dismissive of these attitudes, noting in the FIR interview, “If you’re afraid of conversation, then the chairman would never be doing any interviews with any media. To be a truly effective leader, you need to engage with people, whether it’s inside your own company or outside your company. The conversation is so important…it outweighs any risks there may be.”

Keller adds, “This is recognizing this this is the way the world is going in terms of communications.” Keller also makes it clear the company is willing to make some mistakes in order to learn how to have a two-way conversation with its customers using the online tools into which those customers have already tapped.

The significance of GMnext can’t be understated, assuming it is as candid and sincere as Keller and Barger promise it will be. Nobody has accused GM CEO Wagoner of being a stupid man, and Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has been earning praise for his impact on the company. Both are fully supporting the effort. If GMnext succeeds, expect a lot more companies to start looking beyond models that broadcast messages into the social media space and at the means by which they can engage in truly organic conversations with customers.