Wednesday, October 28, 2009
HC+T Update: October 2009
The October 2009 edition of Shel Holtz’s email newsletter
HC+T Update
October 2009
- Companies Invest In Social Media, Block Their Own Workers
- Who Should Own Social Media? Everybody And Nobody
- Next Webinar: Cut Through The Clutter With Ann Wylie
- Death Watch: Static Destination Website
- Just how social can you be if your online content is exclusionary?
- Recruiters Shouldn’t Care About Your Racy Facebook Picture
- I’m Teaching Ragan Webinar On Podcating November 9
- Site Of The month
- HC+T Update
- Boilerplate and subscription information
As always, the content of this newsletter comes from my blog. You can find the blog at http://blog.holtz.com. And don’t forget, you should seriously consider switching from the email subscription to the RSS feed. Just add the following URL to your RSS news reader: http://blog.holtz.com/index.php/update/rss_2.0/.
1. Companies Invest In Social Media, Block Their Own Workers
At least 10 of my colleagues have alerted me to a study released yesterday by Robert Half Technology, in which 54% of the sample of 1,400 CIOs of companies with 100 or more employees block employees from accessing any social media at work.
Mashable points out the Robert Half study is consistent with other reports. The trend is gaining momentum.
I even received an email today from a communicator who observed that she received a security notice that access to Stop Blocking (http://www.stopblocking.org) was blocked at her organization. Right. God forbid anybody should be able to explore the arguments against this inane and counterproductive practice.
Given the publicity the Half study is getting, it’s worth reiterating the key arguments against blocking.
Well-communicated and consistently enforced policies will deal with most issues. The number of companies blocking access to social media sites is roughly on par with the number of companies without social media policies. Isn’t it possible that employees who knew what the rules were might actually follow them? Especially if they knew there were real and serious consequences for failing to do so?
Access to social media improves productivity. According to Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology, “Using social networking sites may divert employees’ attention away from more pressing priorities, so it’s understandable that some companies limit access.” But multiple studies prove exactly the opposite.
Productivity concerns are based on fatally flawed assumptions. First, there is research to suggest that every hour an employee spends at work on non-work-related websites is compensated for by an hour spent away from work on work-related activities. Do you check your work-related email on your mobile phone before you even get out of bed? Most knowledge workers say they do. Second, there are work-related benefits to social media activities, including collaboration, mindsharing and professional social networking amongst employees, affiliates and partners, according to David Lavenda of WorkLight (drawing on results from a Gartner study).
Employees don’t need your network. I can access any social network I like on my iPhone and my Palm Pre. I have a laptop with built-in access to the Sprint network that gets me on any site I want. Employees can (and do) bring these tools to the workplace. Your blocks have no impact. Employees can still get to Facebook all they want.
Who died and put CIOs in charge of worker productivity anyway? I’m not sure when supervisors and HR abdicated this responsibility to IT, but IT is simply not qualified to address employee productivity.
Blocking kills engagement. There are plenty of studies that tie high levels of worker engagement to increased growth and profitability. Trust is a pillar of engagement. So what happens to engagement when all employees get the same message, “We don’t trust any of you, not a single damn one of you, as far as we can throw you, so we’re blocking all of you”? Bye bye, engagement.
Access to social media is not an automatic invitation to viruses and malware. Those companies that do permit employee access have found ways to protect their networks. For many of the companies blocking access based on the fear of infection, it’s just easier to block than to find ways to protect the network while providing access. Laziness is not an excuse for blocking.
Millenials will not work for companies that block. These workers—the ones you need to hire to replace the retiring boomers—are networked 24/7 and expect the company to accommodate them. Many simply won’t work for companies that block access, which means you’re left to hire your second and third choices. Is mediocrity actually a hiring goal in your organization?
Bandwidth is a bogus issue. Bandwidth is the paper of the digital era. Can you imagine a company 25 years ago telling workers, “We’d love to get memos and publications to you, but we don’t have enough paper”? The very notion is absurd. They’d buy more paper. Companies pinching pennies on bandwidth are doing themselves a disservice in many more ways than one.
Please support the Stop Blocking initiative. Contribute research you’re aware of to the wiki. Share how your access to social networks and other web content has benefitted you at work. Share how blocking has restricted your ability to be as effective as possible at work. Link to Stop Blocking; feel fee to use the Stop Blocking badges on your blog or site. We must get the word out that blocking is a counterproductive, knee-jerk practice that must be stopped for the sake of the very companies that are implementing it.
2. Who Should Own Social Media? Everybody And Nobody
I thought I had seen all the arguments about which function, within an organization, should “own” social media. I’ve argued that PR or communications is the logical home, since PR/comms is the only function in the organization accountable for the company’s reputation and the only function practiced in building relationships with stakeholders.
Reading Chris Kieff’s post yesterday, though, had me rethinking my position. Kieff—a freelance marketer who rights the 1 Good Reason blog—argues that social media is most properly housed in the Human Resources department.
My first thought on reading the post (which Scott Monty pointed out to me) was that the “who should own social media” meme has jumped the shark. I mean, HR? Really? Or perhaps Kieff tossed out a wholly nonsensical argument as a means of generating link bait.
Since everyone in an organization needs to abide by policies governing their social media activities, Kieff asserts, and HR is the keeper of policies, HR should be responsible for social media implementation.
I know, I know. My head was throbbing, too. Companies have travel policies, too; does that mean HR should manage the travel function? There are expense reimbursement policies. Should HR manage the expense function? And, incidentally, what in the world does HR know about communication with external audiences?
Incidentally, I’m sympathetic to HR staff everywhere. They get knocked about as the epitome of bureaucracy, but I’ve worked in and with HR in many organizations and find the vast majority of HR people to be smart, hard-working souls who are committed to their mission of recruiting and retaining the best possible workforce for their employers.
But HR should not own social media. In fact, reading Kieff’s post and the dozens of comments it inspired—and recalling all of the many arguments over social media ownership—have led me to revise my earlier thinking. No single department should own social media.
I was on the road earlier this week working with a company on the evolution of their intranet. Ownership of the intranet at this organization—as it is in so many others—is split among many departments. IT is responsible for technical implementation, communications for content, HR for self-service, and so on. This model is a recipe for problems. In most companies, each department makes decisions about the intranet based on departmental goals and objectives. No single department is accountable for the intranet’s overall direction. The funds to manage and evolve the intranet are split into many different pots.
Back in 2001, Melcrum Communications surveyed more than 500 intranet managers from around the world and found that the most successful intranets—the ones that achieve company-wide goals and get the most funding—are governed cross-functionally. That is, a collaborative or steering committee, rather than any one department or collection of departments with divided responsibilities—produce the best results.
Since a cross-functional model produced the best intranets, it should be no surprise to learn that—back in 2001—67.5% of intranets were governed this way. These cross-functional teams had CEO-level sponsorship, official charters, and high-level membership with the authority to get things done. They were empowered to convene subcommittees with expertise in technical, editorial, and design matters. They tended to be fairly high-level in their focus, spending their time on matters including…
* intranet mandate and vision
* business objectives
* policies and standardization
* project prioritization
* trouble-shooting and conflict resolution
Membership in this teams generally consisted of IT, internal communications, external communications, HR, and marketing. When the members of the team got together, they checked their departmental goals at the door and worked together for the common good of the company.
One other benefit of the cross-functional model: When the group made a decision, it was easier to get the organization to fall in line becayse the decision was made based on input from every group with a dog in the hunt, as opposed to an edict from a single department.
Every element of intranet governance applies to social media. The best way to stop arguing about who owns it is to make sure no single department dictates policy to the rest of the company and that all departments with a stake in the game can collaborate to come to the best decisions for the entire organization. Look at the list of issues intranet steering committees address—mandate/vision, business objectives, policies, prioritization, etc.—and you’ll see precisely what needs to be addressed for companies to employ social media intelligently and strategically.
It’s time for the power plays to come to an end and departments to work together for the good of the organization. Do you have a cross-function governance model for social media in your organization? How does it work?
3. Next Webinar: Cut Through The Clutter
Make every piece you write easier to read and understand
with Ann Wylie
Beginning Monday, Nov. 9
Webinar Cost: US $195
Register here
Is your copy easy to read? According to communication experts, that’s one of the two key questions people ask to determine whether to read a piece — or toss it.
Fortunately, academics have tested and quantified what makes copy easy to read. Unfortunately, that research virtually never makes it out of the ivory tower and into the hands of writers who could actually apply
it.
But you’ll leave this session with “the numbers” you need to measure and improve your copy’s readability. Specifically, you’ll learn:
* How long is too long: For your paragraphs? Your sentences? Your words?
* Three ways to shorten your copy — and which is the most effective
* How to avoid overwhelming your readers with information — because the more data people get, according to studies, the worse their decisions become
* How to cut your copy before you’ve even written the first word
* How to avoid causing your reader to skip your paragraphs
* How to make your copy look easier to read
* When it makes sense to use jargon — and when to avoid it at all costs
* How to run the “Hey! Did you hear?” test on your copy
* A tool you can use (you probably already have it, but you might not know it) to quantifiably improve your copy’s readability
* About research you can use to sell your approvers on shorter, clearer writing
Once you’ve completed this dynamic, example-packed Webinar, you’ll be prepared to make every piece you write or edit clearer and more concise.
About Ann Wylie
As president of Wylie Communications, Ann Wylie works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. She travels from Hollywood to Helsinki,
presenting writing workshops that help communicators at such organizations as NASA, FedEx and Verizon Wireless polish their skills and find new inspiration for their work.
In addition to writing and editing, Ann helps organizations launch or revitalize their Web sites and publications. She has served as a PR professional in an agency, a corporate communicator at Hallmark Cards,
editor of an executive magazine and consultant in her own firm.
Ann is the author of more than a dozen learning tools, including RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. Her work has earned more than 60 communication awards,
including two IABC Gold Quills.
About Shel Holtz Webinars
As with all Shel Holtz Webinars, you’ll have access to a treasure trove of online resources and downloadable handouts. The interface makes participating in the conversation simpler than ever, and voting
in each lecture’s poll has become a lot easier, too.
If you have not participated in one of Shel’s webinars before, watch the introductory video. Webinars consist of five lectures, with a new lecture posted each Monday for five weeks. Lectures consist of a mix of text, audio, and sometimes video…but you don’t need anything more than your web browser.
Webinars are asynchronous — that is, they do not take place in real time. That means you can drop in whenever it’s convenient for you — there’s no place you have to be on any particular day or time.
Webinar cost is U.S. $195.
Register: http://bit.ly/4hR0SS
4. Death Watch: Static Destination Websites
I understood Jonathan Schwartz’s enthusiasm when he suggested, during a talk a couple years ago, that a Sun Microsystems intranet really wasn’t necessary with so many employees blogging. It still didn’t make any sense to me, though. Would it really be easier to find benefits information on employee blogs than on an intranet benefits page? And how, exactly, would an employee enroll for benefits on a blog?
The same kinds of thoughts cross my mind as I hear all the claims that static web sites are dead. The rise of social media and the real-time web has certainly shifted the focus of the online community. There is no question: The era of the destination website is ending, if it’s not already over.
But we’re talking about the end of an era, not the death of a tool. The era of the destination webiste has been one in which organizations pumped most of their online efforts into their dot-com sites; their strategies were focused on driving traffic to those sites. With the time people spend online shifting to real-time and social content, companies do need to rethink how (as a post on digitalbuzz put it) they deliver digital experiences to their customers and other stakeholders.
This is one of the reasons lifestreaming could become important to business. A company can publish many forms of content to one place, which in turn distributes it to appropriate channels: photos to Flickr, videos to YouTube, commentaries to Twitter, and so on. Microsoft is the first business I’ve seen to launch a Posterous lifestream for its new retail stores. The site owners easily send photos from their phones to the site, where they can in turn be added to a Facebook fan page or just about anywhere else.
This doesn’t mean Microsoft has no need for a destination website, however.
The use of a tool is based on the use to which it’s being put. Yes, a lot of content that has been cloistered on company dot-com sites will—and should—shift to distributed venues where people are spending their online time. But there’s still a need for static content that’s housed in one place. I can’t imagine a time when that need will vanish.
When seeking certain types of information, people will continue to go directly to a company website rather than hoping they can find it somewhere in the social web:
* Contact information
* Investor resources
* Product/service listings
* Company history
* Jobs
In fact, the static company website has a new purpose. More and more organizations are using their website as the home for a directory of links to their Facebook pages and groups, Twitter accounts, blogs, Flickr streams, and YouTube channels. Why hope people will stumble on your content when you can direct them to it?
The idea that the social and real-time web will completely kill off static sites is hardly strategic. Far too many organizations are still focused on driving traffic to their dot-com sites, which will become an increasingly frustrating and unrealistic goal. But having those sites available when they prove to the best resource for the kinds of information to which they lend themselves will remain a pillar of a company’s online presence.
5. Just how social can you be if your online content is exclusionary?
I spent some time while at the IABC Heritage Region Conference, with Amy Salmon. Amy is a business consultant based out of Oklahoma City. She’s wife and a mom to two young children.
She’s also blind, the result of macular degeneration that struck her as a young adult. She gets around with the help of friends and family, and her guide dog, Wilbur.
Amy’s consultancy (she’s part of The Rodgers Group, a longtime communications firm run by Amy’s sister, Vicci Rodgers) works to help companies make their online content accessible to the disabled. According to the U.S. Census, more than 54 million people in the U.S. are disabled, representing about 19% of the population. As baby boomers age, the percentage of people with disabilities—and blindness in particular—is poised to rise dramatically.
For a lot of the disabled, getting through a typical website is beyond challenging. It’s impossible. Amy, for example, prefers to shop for her kids online. It’s easier than getting someone to take her to the store and help her identify the products she needs. On the WalMart site, she is able to find products, but she can’t order; that requires a mouse click. A mouse is an essentially useless tool to a blind person, Amy told me.
(Incidentally, Amy won’t shop at Target at all. The only reason the iconic retailer’s site is compliant with the accessibility standards established by the World Wide Web consortium is that they were ordered to by a federal judge following a lawsuit filed by the National Federation of the Blind.)
In the U.K., a study determined that purchases the blind cannot make on inaccessible website account for tens of millions of pounds. I’d love to know the results of such a study in the U.S. with its considerably larger population.
Amy uses a tool called Wave—not the new Google communication tool everyone’s talking about, but a more established site for evaluating a website’s accessibility. I plugged in the URL for WalMart’s home page; Wave returned 10 accessibility errors, including Javascript that can’t be interpreted by a text-to-voice reader, hidden content, problematic link text (text that “does not make sense out of context”), headings that are not appropriately marked, event handlers, and more. And all this was just on the home page.
I was also struck by Amy’s stories about talking to companies about the inaccessability of their sites. She has been told, flat-out, “We don’t care about that part of the market.” A key reason: remediating sites to make them accessible could be costly, particularly for ecommerce-based sites with thousands or pages.
Much of Amy’s consulting business comes her way via legal departments. Businesses are concerned about avoiding lawsuits. Accommodating nearly a fifth of the market? Not so much.
Accessibility is not a new issue. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the Web back in 1989 and heads up the Worldwide Web Consortium, has said, “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.” (Here are more quotes from Berners-Lee about accessibility, an issue he clearly believes in.)
But considering all the proclamations by companies that they want to build relationships through social media, accessibility should be a more prominent goal. When companies establish Twitter and Facebook fan pages in order to be more accessible, isn’t it disingenuous—even hypocritical—to maintain online content that can’t be consumed by those whom life has handed the additional challenge of blindness, deafness, or cognitive or physical limitations?
Just how social can you claim to be if your online content excludes this segment of society, this potentially lucrative slice of your market? It’s hardly sincere to claim to be engaged while simultaneously proclaiming, “Sorry, the blind and deaf are not welcome.”
Part of the problem is that nobody wants to be accountable. Communications professionals tell Amy it’s not their problem; talk to IT, they say. (Wave detected 20 accessibility errors on the PRSA website.) But part of the problem is lack of attention. Tens of thousands of people can protest a Motrin video that offends them, but good luck finding a surge of indignation around a site that denies access to the disabled.
I’ll be talking with Amy for an interview segment on my podcast, “For Immediate Release. In the meantime, I just wanted to make the point: It should give you pause the next time you tout your social efforts if your own online content includes a huge “Go Away” sign for anybody who isn’t fortunate enough to be free of disabilities.
6. Recruiters Shouldn’t Care About Your Racy Facebook Picture
It’s becoming a litany.
In a meeting or during a presentation, somebody—usually an HR rep or recruiter—will tell me how many candidates she has rejected based on something she saw on the candidate’s Facebook or MySpace profile. In every case, it has been something along the lines of a photo taken during a party at college. My response: “If your employer knew what you did during college, would you have been hired?”
College is for two things: Getting an education and being stupid. The only difference between college when I went and college today is that there was no Facebook, or anything remotely like it, during my days at university.
Today, we’re living through one of the most remarkable transitions in history. We’re moving from an era during which people were secretive and kept things close to the vest to an era where everyone is networked and everyone shares everything. And those who grew up in the soon-to-be bygone era are making hiring decisions about people who grew up in the era that is hurtling toward us like an out-of-control freight train.
It has become conventional wisdom for people of my generation to wag their fingers at millenials, warning them of the dangers that await if they’re too open with their extracurricular activities. Even Dan Tapscott, whose “Grown Up Digital” does an admirable job of explaining the Net Generation, insists that the one thing they don’t get is that sharing outrageous behavior today will come back to bite them in the ass a few years down the road when they’re trying to get hired.
That’s true today, with people who kept their late-night fraternity-house drinking binges on the QT. It won’t be so long, though, before the hiring managers have shared just as much of their social lives online as the recruits they’re looking to hire. The fact that people got drunk and engagred in questionable behavior in school just won’t matter.
Consequently, that Animal House behavior really shouldn’t matter to hiring managers today. Like I say, the hiring manager probably engaged in some pretty stupid behavior of his own when he was in college, too. The fact that he did shots off a co-ed’s belly when he was 19 didn’t make him a bad hire when he was 23.
Back in 1987, Judge Douglas Ginsburg didn’t make it onto the U.S. Supreme Court because he’d smoked a little pot when he was in college. Today, denying a job to anybody who ever tried marijuana in college carves a huge slice out of the pool of prospective candidates. A prospect’s social behavior in college is simply not a predictor of their value as an employee.
Recruiters and HR people can even eek out a competitive edge by overlooking a four-year-old picture on a Facebook page and focusing on their qualifications today. After all, that’s what today’s candidates will be doing in five years when they’re the ones making the hiring decisions.
7. I’m Teaching Ragan Webinar On Podcasting November 9
Ready to try podcasting? Already podcasting and wondering what’s new?
Then you’ll want to learn from the best. Shel Holtz, a leader in podcasting, will teach you how to create a podcast that will:
* Influence opinions, attitudes and behaviors of your targeted listeners
* Build community within your company AND with customers
* Build affinity with existing customers
* Heighten C-suite credibility
* Encourage dialogue among employees
You will learn how to:
* Strategize a business podcast: Make sure your message is in line with your communications initiatives
* Produce a podcast: The tools and resources you need to get started—no matter what your budget
* Integrate your online content with your podcast: Match up your online text and
* Produce a podcast with no equipment and no cost: Use new services to record a podcast with nothing more than a telephone.
* Incorporate live call-ins with recorded podcasts: Build an audience with a show that involves your listeners in real time, online and off.
* Build a community of listeners: Draw an audience—both externally and internally
* Promote a successful podcast: Create content that builds a better connection between employees and leaders
* Take advantage of tools you may already own: Produce a podcast—including the upload—with an iPhone? Successful podcasters are already doing it.
* Measure the effectiveness of your podcast: If no one is listening, you’re wasting your time and resources
Podcasting is one of the easiest of social media tools to convince management to use—and the success you have could serve as the gateway to more company engagement with social media. What you need to know is how podcasting can be applied strategically in your organization, how it can support communication efforts and promote the bottom line. (Why do anything if it doesn’t support the bottom line?)
The answers are right here. When you complete this webinar, you’ll know how to produce a podcast, engage your listeners, and increase communication both internally and externally.
Fee: $349 ($249 for RaganSelect members)
Register: http://bit.ly/47CUdi
8. Site of the Month
I’m frequently trying to schedule multiple people for conference calls, which usually involves a lot of back-and-forth emails: “No, I can’t make that date, can you make this one?” “I can but one of the other participants in the call can’t. How about this date?” “That’s good for me, but not at 2 p.m. How about 8 a.m.?” “Is that East Coast time?” And on it goes. Fortunately, I’ve found a free online tool that makes this process a breeze. It’s called Tungle, and if you ever need to schedule a lot of people for any kind of activity, you’ll immediately add it to your list of really, really useful online tools.
9. HC+T update
- I’m participating in a National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) panel at the organization’s Silicon Valley chapter on November 13.
- I’m delivering a keynote at the Greystone.net Healthcare Internet conference in Las Vegas on November 3; I’m also presenting a luncheon talk at a pre-conference session on November 2.
- I’m speaking at Ragan Communications’ 2009 Employee Communications, PR and Social Media Summit at Microsoft headquarters on November 17.
10. Boilerplate and subscription information
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