Published November 17, 2011byamelielaunayonNovember 17, 2011inPress Releases
blueKiwi offers online tools and guidance based on end user study results
Reading, UK, 17 November, 2011 –
Anecdotal evidence is not enough
Social networking has become an integral part of our lives – the culture of sharing and collaborating is changing how we react with one another. Within the workplace, Enterprise Social Networks are similarly reshaping how employees engage with each other, within an organisation, as well as with external partners and customers.
Anecdotal evidence stacks up, but during tough times, hard facts are more often required to convince organisations to invest in such tools. blueKiwi’s White Paper explains in simple terms how an ESN can have a real impact on productivity and more importantly, the bottom line.
A solid point that needs to come across more clearly as we launch anther round of autumn events on how mainstream Social Business has become. There are still plenty of CFO and CEOs out there that have a hard time trying to see the business value and since an investment is needed, more often than not so is a justification.
It will be interesting to see if the use of an ROI calculator can be good enough in a real world scenario to show financially quantifiable benefits !
Published November 14, 2011In my last post, I walked through some of the reasons why compliant social business is so challenging. In this post, I want to take a look at the four steps organizations need to take in order to give themselves the best chance of solving the compliance challenges of going social.
The four steps to getting compliant are:
- Create a cross-functional body to ‘own’ the problem of social media compliance
- Find out what’s happening with social media at all levels of your organization
- Focus on creating a reasonable, defensible social media compliance strategy
- Manage social media compliance the way you manage traditional compliance
Let’s look at each in detail:
As we are approaching he Social Business / Enteprise 2.0 conference in Santa Clara, I really hope the terminology will finally be made clear. Is Social Business and Social Media really the same thing?
I am pretty sure that when I talk to clients I see them differently and so do most of them. So what are we talking about, Social Business, or Social Media.
The content of the piece is still very valid for Social Media and a good read to get up to speed on the subject. So go and read the rest online over at CMSWire.
Published November 9, 2011
During the 2011 Social Business Virtual Conference by AIIM, I had prepared a session on Governance within Facebook. Thank you to Jesse Wilkins, AIIM Director for Systems of Engagement for his support, as well as the many AIIM staff in the background
I want to repeat some of the points made during my presentation and I want to start the whole thing with a quote:
“@HannsKK common sense approach to FB Governance #sbcon11 by @ECMEmpress”
I retweeted the sentiment with the addition – “Common sense is HARD !”
As I started reading through the Privacy rules and Terms & Conditions of Facebook, I noticed that there are lots and lots of potential pitfalls for companies that want to get active on Facebook. Two examples of where things have gone wrong:
A number of employees identifiable as from a particular company, join a group against a controversial building project. Although in no way representing the company or reflecting on how the company looks at the project, the impression is that at least part of the workforce is against the project. As I noted in a previous blogpost – perception may end up being reality in the public eye.
Another case, this one is hypothetical. An employee clicks on a like or Recommend button on a website, this gets posted back to his Facebook profile… where he happens to also be the admin for the brand or company Fan page… and he publishes the story as the Company, thereby voicing approval.
For the second one, I do not have a link, but I am sure it has happened, and if the case is suitably embarrassing, it will find its way onto one of the many Facebook Update Fail pages, thereby further spreading the news.
Facebook, which really is meant as an example, but which is currently without comparison within social networking, has brought risk so much closer to the individual user. There are potentially hundreds of millions of readers, not just friends and family, but also competitors, managers, HR people, your granddad or grandma and your next employer, all there to read about it. Sharing a post, or liking a post, pulls it exponentially into a very large circle. Look at LinkedIn and the statistics it gives you. 800 contacts gives you tens of thousands 2nd degree contacts, and millions of third degree contacts, friends of friends or friends, so not that far away, certainly less than the 6 we are all said to be removed from each other.
But back to Governance and Facebook.
The first thing is to realise that Facebook is not like all the other channels. Its reach, diversity and penetration is much further and deeper than anything we have ever seen before. No other Social network has as many members.
Facebook is not like LinkedIn or Xing, both networks meant for business networking. It holds everything from the ridiculous to the mundane, from the trivial,to regular nuggets of real knowledge and liberally sprinkled with requests for cows, spanners, guns, money and support while expanding your virtual gaming empire.
Facebook is not exactly known for its great privacy controls. Yes, they are there, but many people are neither familiar with them, nor do they keep up with the regular changes as FB adapts to the desires of both users, developers and in some cases additional pressures from lawmakers and competitors.
All of these factors contribute to the need for a much more detailed, a wider, or potentially more problematic governance setting. The first question you have to ask yourself, is whether you will want to be on Facebook yourself as an organization or not. If the answer is no, fine, then do not expect your employees to make the same decision. Deal with that fact that a lot of them will be on there and give them some guidance about what to do there.
Things to think about are:
- Commenting
- Liking
- Joining Groups
- Starting Fan Pages
- Using Apps
Give guidance on each one of those. But also thinking about a wider implications of a presence on FB. Things to think about in this context are:
- What values do I want to transport as an organization on Facebook
- What policies and procedures do I put in place
- What processes are needed for publishing, commenting, Joining, etc.
- Who has responsibility and what new roles are needed
- How do I train people, when and on what
All of this of course combined with a communication policy that keeps the process transparent and understandable.
It is not a trivial exercise, but part of a larger corporate governance structure and it needs to tie in with that. I will be trying to go into more detail in the next post, but of course, if you have any questions, just contact me on…. Facebook, or Twitter. I am usually there. 
Published September 20, 2011
Ich hatte vor kurzer Zeit das Vergnügen auf einem Enterprise 2.0 Meeting in Frankfurt dabei zu sein. Eingeladen hatte 
1. Untersuchung bestehender Aktivitäten.
Gerade bei grossen Unternehmen wird es immer wieder vorkommen, dass bereits viele Einzelpersonen oder Abteilungen, weil eine entsprechende zentrale Strategie fehlt, eigene Aktivitäten angefangen haben. Dadurch sind bestimmt Namen, URLs oder Gruppennamen bereits belegt, z.B. bei Facebook. Durch dieses Gewirr durch zu schauen, zu verstehen wer was wo bereits macht und mit wieviel Erfolg, ist die erste Aufgabe. Hier ist es vor allem wichtig diese Aktivitäten zu analysieren und nicht einfach nur unterbinden zu wollen.
2. Strategie
Wie bei allen Aktivitäten in einem Unternehmen muss eine gute Strategie am Anfang stehen. Welche Ziele verfolge ich mit einer Social Media Präzens? Wenn es ein „nur“ Ersatz sein soll für das einseitige Publizieren von Informationen, dann wird es falsch verstanden. Social Media ist eine offene Kommunikation und entsprechende Personen müssen bereit sein diese Diskussion an zu gehen, am liebsten mit einer Gebrauchsanweisung durch, in Microsoft Beispiel, der PR Abteilung
3. Management überzeugen
Ohne Management geht sehr wenig. Auch Social Media braucht ein Budget und muss in der Lage sein Inhalte zu publizieren und produzieren. Management muss die Notwendigkeit aber auch den Nutzen verstehen, und zwar in einer Sprache, die verstanden wird. “Wir brauchen Facebook, weil alle dies haben!” ist kein Argument !
4. Akitiväten initiieren
Es reicht nicht einen Kanal zu etablieren, oder zu sagen, ja es ist in Ordnung wenn jeder eine eigene Facebook Fanpage oder ein Blog eröffnet. Wenn alle Aktivitäten sinnvoll aufeinander anschliessen sollen, dann braucht das Unternehmen einen Personenkreis, der die Bedürfnisse der einzelnen Gruppen aufeinander abstimmt, diese zeitlich sinnvoll verteilt und auch schon Mal einen Stock an Basis-informationen zur Verfügung stellt, mit denen die einzelnen Blogger und Fanpage Administratoren dann einen eigenen entsprechenden Post vorbereiten können.
5. Authentisch bleiben
Und an den letzten Punkt anknöpfen. Marketing, oder PR, oder wer auch immer Aktivitäten initiiert darf niemals in solcher weise in die Freiheiten der eigenen Publikationen eingreifen, das es wie ein Marketing Brief oder eine Standard Pressemeldung klingt. Wenn die Nachricht transportiert werden soll, sollte jeder Autor seinen Stil und seine Art beibehalten können. Die Kontrolle aufzugeben und loszulassen ist wahrscheinlich eine schwierige Aufgabe, aber sie muss bemeistert werden, will die Social Media Kampagne ein Erfolg werden.
6. Messbar
Und was heißt Erfolg? Viele Social Media Kampagnen werden in den Unternehmen schnell wieder abgeblasen, oder kommen nicht über ein Mauerblümchen Dasein hinaus. Warum nicht? Weil die falschen Maßstäbe angelegt wurden. 10,000 Euro, die man in eine Traditionelle Marketing-kampagne oder eine PR Aktion hineinbezahlt werden gemessen an Quoten wie Rücklaufen oder ähnlichen harten Zahlen. So zeigt sich jedoch das die Anzahl von Fans auf Facebook oder Follower auf Twitter genauso wenig Aussagekraft habenm wie die Anzahl der Besucher auf der Startseite meines Webauftrittes. Andere Analysen und andere Metrics müssen her. Da zeigt sich auch bei Microsoft die Schwierigkeit, weil es gerade in diesem Markt sehr wenig wirklich gute Anwendungen gibt, die den Anforderungen eines Kunden gerecht werden können, der genau weiss was er will und die entsprechenden Zahlen und Fakten verlangt. Doch hierzu in einem zukünftigen Artikel mehr.
Im Abschluss kann ich nur sagen, dass die Aktivitäten von Microsoft so wie sie uns in dem Vortrag vorgestellt wurden, eine beeindruckende Kombination von Top-down und Bottom-up miteinander verknüpften ohne die Kreativität der einzelnen „Evangelisten“ zu stark zu beschränken. Die Zahlen zeigen in diesem Fall ganz klar, das Engagement, Präsenz und Planung den potentiellen Kunden erreicht hat. Ich freue mich schon auf zukünftige Treffen der Enterprise 2.0 Gruppe, in Frankfurt, Köln, München, Hamburg oder anderen Städten und kann jedem, der sich für dieses Thema interessiert nur anraten auch zu kommen !
Published September 15, 2011Why are we hanging “-aaS’s” off the backend of almost everything we write?
by Tom Austin | April 12, 2011 | Comments Off
We are being overrun by -aaSs. They’re being stuck on everything from Software to Storage (SaaS versus SaaS) and virtually everything in between..I know it’s too much to ask that we disrupt the -aaSification of the industry too soon. Everyone is doing it these days (much like sticking e before everything a dozen years ago was seen as the cool, must-do thing). But we’re about to suffocate from excessive suffixes, a form of suffixation-suffication..I will persist in thinking that sticking aaS on the tail end of everything will, in a few years time, be viewed as a really silly aas affectation. We will get over it..This penchant for suffixation-suffocation was originally driven by a search for a middle-ground between selling software versus delivering a service that doesn’t require you buy software..Please deliver us from excess -aaS!
Comments after my own heart. we do not need e’s or i’ in front of everything, or “aaS” at the end of everything… oh, and we do not need “Social” in front of everything either !
Published July 19, 2011Let’s get this straight – a few years ago, you read The Cluetrain Manifesto or Groundswell or one of the other hundred social media books out there, you started reading Mashable, you created a Twitter account, and you developed a bunch of presentations you used internally to help get buy-in from your organization’s senior leadership for your social media ideas. It’s now two or three years later, and you’ve become the organizational “expert,” “guru,” or “subject matter expert” in social media, your social media blog receives a lot of traffic, you’ve championed the use of Enterprise 2.0 tools internally, and you’re managing your organization’s Twitter and Facebook pages. Everything’s going according to plan, right?
Eh….not quite.
Here’s the thing – over the last few years, you’ve probably gotten a few raises, won some awards, maybe you’ve even been promoted one or two times. I hope you’ve enjoyed your rise to the top because I’m here to tell you that the end is near. If you’ve ridden the wave of social media and branded yourself as the social media “guru,” “ninja,” or “specialist,” I hope you’ve got a backup plan in place because what once set you apart from the crowd now just lumps you right in there with millions of other people with the same skills, the same experience, and the same knowledge. A few years ago, you were innovative. You were cutting-edge. You were forward-thinking. You were one of a few pioneers in a new way of thinking about communicating. Just a few short years later, and you’re now normal. You’re just doing what’s expected. You’re one of many. Social media specialists are the new normal. Oh, you were the Social Media Director for a political campaign? Congratulations – so were the other 30 people who interviewed for this position. What else have you done? What other skills do you have? People with social media skills and experience on their resume aren’t hard to find anymore. It’s those people who don’t anything about social media who stand out now.
The good news is that this doesn’t have to be the end. Instead trying to be a social media ninja, try being a communications specialist. Try being a knowledge management professional. Try being a recruiter. Try being an information technology professional. Because guess what – THAT’S what you are doing. Instead of talking about how you have thousands of Twitter followers or Facebook fans, talk about what those fans have helped you accomplish. Instead of talking about the number of blog subscribers you have, talk about how much revenue that blog helped generate for your organization. Instead of talking about the number of members of your Yammer network, talk about how that community has positively impacted your organization’s workforce. Start talking about social media for what it is – a set of tools that people with real professions use to do their jobs. Don’t try to be an expert at using a hammer. Try to be the master builder who can use the hammer, the saw, and the screwdriver to build a house.
When everyone’s a specialist, no one’s a specialist. What makes you stand out now?
And as I was preparing my last post, Steve published the following on his blog. Like so many times, he beat me to it 
Very true thoughts…
Published July 19, 2011To debunk : –verb (used with object) to expose or excoriate (a claim, assertion, sentiment, etc.) as being pretentious, false, or exaggerated: to debunk advertising slogans.
After reading the following 2 posts from fellow AIIM bloggers “Content isn’t Social, You are” by Laurence Hart and “Social: Bugger All New to See Here” by Chris Walker, as well as “Social business or Enterprise 2.0 – or a different term altogether?” by Stefan Pfeiffer; I must coe to the clear conclusion that we have reached a turning point in how we talk, tweet, blog about Social Business. While only 1-2 years ago, it was considered cutting edge and in many ways the way of the future for organizations that want to improve upon many collaborative or innovative ways of working, this time it feels almost like we (those that wese ahead of the curve 3 years ago) have gone mainstream.
Social Business is no longer the wave of the future, but the way of the present. We are living in interesting times ! Any guesses on what is going to be the next big thing?
Published May 9, 2011(This post was originally published on the AIIM Blogger Community here)
Well, for the last 6 months I have been cloistered away, well actually it has been a lot longer, trying to get the AIIM Social Business Buyers Guide together. After initial decisions about who should be in the list and who should not be for this time, the long search / research started. Now I have worked for vendors in the past and have some idea about some of the strange emails they get.
But something still baffles me and this is one for the customer. Vendors if you want to be taken seriously in a business world, behave like business, not like a bunch of developers who do not want to sell anything.
Some lessons learned, which would turn me off completely if I were a customer;
Make it clear what you are offering / selling. Some products look cool, but if your website does not make it clear what you are actually offering.
Make contact details easily findable ! – I live in Germany, and all German websites need to have an “Impressum”, which lists full address and contact details of the person or organisation responsible for the content.
Have someone monitor the accounts! – Great, you have given an Email account, now let someone answer it !
Answer the question: As part of the survey to be included, I send out a questionnaire, where it was clear or not is beside the point. Answer the question you were asked… do NOT copy & paste a piece from your won website. I’d rather you send me the link then.
Stop trying to sell me something: It is amazing. Some vendors will schedule a product demo with a sales person,. This is fine.. but then do not try to keep sell me the product.
Do not offer me a job- Although flattering to some extend, once I have identified myself as an analyst writing a buyers guide, offering me a commission-based job on representing your product is just bad form. Don’t !
Keep your promises – If you promise to send me something, or make a recording of a conference-call and promise to make it available to me afterwards so I do not have to take a lot of notes, then make sure I get it!
All of these would turn off any potential customer trying to find out whom to shortlist!
But there was also a lot of good information delivered by the vendors. Some showed me their roadmaps for upcoming changes and expansions. It is good to see how many vendors are moving into more professional delivery mechanism, business models and professional service organizations as well as a worldwide channel network. We have come a long way from simple collaboration capabilities early this century and the Web 2.0 wave that made Andrew McAfee to call it Enterprise 2.0 in 2006. So as much as I had to struggle to get some information, the information that I did get made me hopeful for great things to come in this market space.
Watch this space for more information as well as some excerpts here in the near future… and if you are a vendor who thinks that they might have missed a trick when talking to me, please feel free to contact me. It is never too late to improve on a mediocre first impression!
Published December 20, 2010One of things that has been bugging me for the last few months is that some of my friends, as well as people around the office of several friends are having to deal more and more with absentee colleagues. Not because there are not enough people in the office, or not enough qualified people around.. but because these colleagues have just had enough. They have suffered something called burnout. Until I faced it myself, I did not take it seriously, but since then I have been reading up on it. The World Health Organization lists is as a stress related disease under Z73.0, under Problems related to Life-Management Issues. And there are a million articles around about what causes it and how to avoid it.
The one thing that struck me the most is, that it often catches engaged and dedicated people who are hard workers and go far beyond the call of duty. They work hard, often without recognition, without appreciation and sometimes even isolated from their colleagues. They have too much to do, find it hard to share their thoughts and reach out or even find suitable discussion partners amongst their peers inside of an organization. It seems that the ways of working, more disconnected, more distributed, working from home, without the direct support of colleagues may be a factor as well as it can increase the felt isolation
There are of course other reasons for burnout, but I would like to concentrate on those, and with the help of this community start a little research project. I would like to look at the impact of social Media on the reasons for Burnout. This is not about Social Media leading to burnout, which I am sure also is possible, trying to keep your many different channels fed 7 times a day with something more or less intelligent to say.
I am looking for empirical and research evidence that the use of Social Media, the sharing amongst peers, the communication and transparency can actually prevent Burnout and make return into a normal working environment easier. I do not think that this is a trivial issue as Burnout costs society billions of dollars every year. [according to research by the leading private insurance company in Australia, they put the figure at $14] Maybe we are even barking up the wrong tree when we keep saying that it is about people and culture change… it may be about keeping our workforce sane.
During a recent conversation with someone who has just come out of depression and Burnout, this person said the following. “Social Media helped me getting connected without having to face my real social fabric and still interface casually without having to share my pain. […]At the end, it really helped getting back into the game without a too deep fracture.”
Now I am not saying going on Twitter will in any way avoid Burnout, but maybe having a social environment where you can continue to function and have more control and maybe more appreciation can help in some cases.
As I am not a medical doctor or psychologist, I am looking for such people who are interested in working together on doing some research on this. I am also looking for people that have suffered Burnout and are active in Social Media and Social Networking both inside and outside the organization.
If you are interested in talking part, please send me an email to research@hkkconsulting.com, stating your brief story, either as a therapist or a sufferer.
I look forwards to hearing from you. The research will be published on hkkconsutling.com next year, but I will continue to contribute to this community on the subject as I believe it is of interest to a lot more people than we think !
Posted in Analyst, Current Affairs, Enterprise2.0, Social Media | 
Burnout, Business, Social media, Social network | 
Leave a commentPublished December 6, 2010Only the other day I was asked by a Group of consultants about my perception of a certain Vendor in the ECM space. Although I had no particularly strong feelings, I did share the perception that the story of this vendor was a little weak…
We then got into the discussion about whether perception is reality or becomes reality. The consultant pointed out that his perception was reality.
After many a joke, I decided to take this question a bit more seriously. In todays world of fast-moving information, peer voting, Facebook and Reputation management, perception is reality. We have seen it many times in the past where a brand because of the comments of a few of its users. These days a single user can very quickly and effectively reach millions within a few short hops.
And the same is also true inside a company. Not to the same degree, but with the same consequences all the same. Once we accept open communication and transparency, the way we are perceived by our colleagues becomes reality. Yes we can laugh about this, but its is true all the same.
It is something to think about next time someone asks you whether your perception is right or not… in some cases, perception is reality !