Organizations Don't Tweet, People Do E-Book

Euan Semple

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 316

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Practical advice for managers on how the Web and social media can help them to do their jobs better

Today's managers are faced with an increasing use of the Web and social platforms by their staff, their customers, and their competitors, but most aren't sure quite what to do about it or how it all relates to them. Organizations Don't Tweet, People Do provides managers in all sorts of organizations, from governments to multinationals, with practical advice, insight and inspiration on how the Web and social tools can help them to do their jobs better. From strategy to corporate communication, team building to customer relations, this uniquely people-centric guide to social media in the workplace offers managers, at all levels, valuable insights into the networked world as it applies to their challenges as managers, and it outlines practical things they can do to make social media integral to the tone and tenor of their departments or organizational cultures.

• A long-overdue guide to social media that talks directly to people in the real world in which they work
• Grounded in the author's unparalleled experience consulting on social media, it features eye-opening accounts from some of the world's most successful and powerful organizations
• Gives managers at all levels and in every type of organization the context and the confidence to make better decisions about the social web and its impact on them

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

ENDORSEMENTS

Title page

Copyright page

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

1 WE ALL NEED TO GROW UP

2 TEN STEPS TO SUCCESS WITH TECHNOLOGY

3 THE ULTIMATE IN DEMOCRACY

4 LEAVING A TRACE

5 EVOLUTION ON STEROIDS

6 “WRITING OURSELVES INTO EXISTENCE”

7 LITERACY RE-DISCOVERED

8 MASS ILLITERACY

9 STATING THE OBVIOUS

10 VOLUME CONTROL ON MOB RULE

11 DEALING WITH A BOSS WHO DOESN’T “GET IT”

12 THE MORE YOU GIVE THE MORE YOU GET

13 “OOH, THAT’S INTERESTING”

14 THE NETWORK OF NETWORKS

15 REAL LEADERS HAVE FOLLOWERS

16 REAL FRIENDS

17 TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

18 GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED CONVERSATIONS

19 CONVERSATIONS CAN ONLY TAKE PLACE BETWEEN EQUALS

20 MANAGEMENT BY BEING INTERESTED

21 ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

22 THE MEANING OF TRUE COLLABORATION

23 WAR OF THE WORLDS

24 THE INSIDE IS BECOMING THE OUTSIDE

25 YOUR STAFF ARE YOUR BEST ADVOCATES

26 CREATIVELY MESSY

27 INNOVATION AND THE FORCES OF DISRUPTION

28 NO SUCH THING AS CONSCRIPTS

29 HEADING INTO THE GREAT UNKNOWN

30 BE STRATEGICALLY TACTICAL

31 BACK TO FRONT ROI

32 THE PRICE OF POMPOSITY

33 MANAGING THE MESS

34 WE NEED MORE RUBBISH

35 LINES IN THE SAND

36 SMALL PIECES LOOSELY JOINED

37 UNLEASH YOUR TROJAN MICE

38 DON’T FEED THE TROLLS

39 WHEN THE SHIT HITS THE FAN

40 CRISIS MANAGEMENT

41 THE BEST WAY TO BE SAFE IS TO BE OPEN

42 RADICAL TRANSPARENCY

43 THE REVOLUTION IS WITHIN

44 IT’S YOUR PARTY . . . 

45 A FINAL WORD

A NOTE ABOUT TECHNOLOGY

Forums

Weblogs

Social networking tools

Wikis

Twitter

RSS

READING LIST

ABOUT EUAN SEMPLE

Index

ENDORSEMENTS

“This book is as insightful, unconventional, and original as its author. It will change how you see things, and it will change what you do.” From the Foreword by Andrew McAfee Principal Research Scientist at MIT and author ofEnterprise 2.0

“Euan is one of the top thinkers in the world about how the web ACTUALLY works, as opposed to how the trendy guru types like to PRETEND it works. Read everything he’s written, is my advice.” Hugh MacLeod, cartoonist

“Euan has not only been there and done it, he has also thought profoundly about it. Highly recommended.” Dave Snowden, Chief Scientific Officer, Cognitive Edge

“One of the best minds in the world just to be around. Highly recommended.” Thomas Power, Founder and CEO, Ecademy

“A clear explanation of how flatter structures, self-organising teams and vanishing boundaries can be good for business, from one of the sharpest thinkers on the merits of social business, knowledge management and radical transparency.” Richard Sambrook, Global Vice Chairman, Edelman

“From the title of the book, to chapter headings, to the actual words, Euan’s positive fun-loving personality and forward-thinking passion for “making organizations better” shine through. With humour and directness, he shares insights and ideas about what’s possible in the workplace, the technologies that can enable effectiveness, and the people who will make it happen. Well done Euan!” Jane Dysart, KMWorld Conference Chair, Dysart & Jones Associates

“In this easy-to-read yet insightful book, Euan brings the thoughts he has been sharing on his blog together and invites readers to have a dance with him, to learn, practice and submerge ourselves in the steps to make 2.0 work. Enjoyable read!” Dr Bonnie Cheuk, Director Global Head of Knowledge & Collaboration, Citi

“Euan’s voice – thoughtful, humorous, humane, cautiously optimistic – is distinctive among the general babble about social media and web 2.0. It cuts through the confusion, making practical suggestions that can be acted on quickly, but also, in a down-to earth way, drawing you into a bigger and more important conversation about why all this matters. And it does.” Dr Matthew Shaw, Curator, US Collections, The British Library

“In a world full of phoney social media ‘gurus’ it’s hard to find people who actually know what they’re talking about. Euan Semple is the most pioneering, visionary thinker of our times and probably the very best at explaining the web in ways we can all understand. Euan was a massive influence on our social business approach which now sees thousands of people working in a whole new way around the world. This refreshing book makes his thoughts and insights available to all. An inspiring must-read for anyone serious about doing business in today’s world.” Nick Crawford, Social Business Strategist, Bupa

“Euan has not only mastered the fine art of setting the stage and letting work of real value emerge through social means, he is also capable of teaching others the fine art of allowing more to come about than just what was planned. This book takes his wisdom, his learnings and his brilliant way of expressing it and puts it in a form to allow organizations to proceed under their own steam. Read it, discuss it and seize the opportunity to unleash your organization.” Bruce A Stewart, Director, The iSchool Institute, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto

“A thoughtful, intelligent book for managers and executives. Euan explores the real meaning of democracy and shows why it’s a great model for modern corporations. He explicitly reveals the differences between anarchy, libertarianism and genuine democracy. He reminds us that the essence of democracy is personal responsibility. When everyone in the organisation takes responsibility for his or her actions, the organisation – and the world around it – becomes a far better place.” Mike Barlow, co-author,The Executive’s Guide to Enterprise Social Media StrategyandPartnering with the CIO

“Euan has a knack for bringing clarity and cohesion to the disparate elements of what we broadly term social collaboration. It is easy to get stimulated by the possibilities of interactivity but not so easy to productively introduce those elements inside the business firewalls. Euan provides that roadmap and more. He is a pioneer in blazing the path …” Stephen Collesano Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Global Research, ACE Group

“The book covers an incredibly comprehensive range of aspects of our digital lives. Each chapter inspired me to a number of new ideas I will be spending the next few months exploring further and hopefully soon applying!” Christer Holloman, Chairman, First Tuesday UK

“Euan demystifies many of the notions associated with the frequently over-hyped term ‘social media’, offers the reader real-world and pragmatic guidance and shares his vision for a better future. If you want to understand the forces that have the potential to transform businesses, and the way we all work – read this book.” Matthew Hanwell, HR Director, Communities and Social Media, Nokia

“If poetry is the art of finding words for things that are difficult to express or would otherwise be left untold, then Euan must be the poet par excellence of the social media and collaboration world. Anybody who is working in social media is ultimately an advocate and as such is in a constant struggle to find the right words to articulate the need for change, to describe what they are doing in plain terms, to demystify the technology and bring the attention back to the human element. Euan has the unique talent to provide the struggling social media evangelist with a vocabulary that is stripped of any hype or pomposity, and crystallises in memorable quotes, questions and challenges that they face in their daily work. What they felt or knew for a long time but could not possibly articulate is put in front of them with disarming simplicity. It is hard to describe what empowering effect finding the right words can have. I am thinking of classic Euan aphorisms like “social media adoption happens one person at a time, and for their reasons, not yours”, which has for long been a poster in my office and I have been endlessly using in trainings. Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do has already become one of my favourites. With this book, the social media advocate’s struggle for words comes to an end. My gratitude goes to Euan for, once again, telling the untold.” Giulio Quaggiotto, Practice Leader, Knowledge and Innovation, UNDP (views are personal, not UNDP)

This edition first published 2012

© 2012 Euan Semple

TWEET is a registered trademark of TWITTER, Inc. Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do is an unofficial, independent publication, and John Wiley and Sons Ltd is not endorsed, sponsored, affiliated with or otherwise authorized by TWITTER.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Semple, Euan.

 Organizations don’t tweet, people do : a managers guide to the social Web / Euan Semple.

p. cm.

 ISBN 978-1-119-95055-4 (hardback)

1. Online social networks. 2. Management. I. Title.

 HM742.S45 2012

 302.3068–dc23

2011046736

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-119-95055-4 (hbk) ISBN 978-1-119-95130-8 (ebk)

ISBN 978-1-119-95131-5 (ebk) ISBN 978-1-1199-5132-2 (ebk)

FOREWORD

Euan Semple was a rumour to me before he was a colleague. In the middle of the new millennium’s first decade, as I was trying to understand what if anything was really going on with this ‘Web 2.0’ meme and what if anything it might mean to organizations outside the tech sector, I started to hear about a bloke who had answers. And he had them not because he had conducted studies or invented cool new digital tools, but as a result of his work actually accomplishing the kinds of technology-enabled business improvements I thought might theoretically, one day, be possible.

Over time the rumours coalesced into a fuzzy but intriguing picture. While working at the BBC, Euan had become profoundly frustrated with the organization’s tools, processes, and approaches for gathering and sharing its own knowledge, whether in printed form or lodged in the heads of the people who worked there. He realized the sad truth of former HP CEO Lew Platt’s comment: “If only HP knew what HP knows, we’d be three times as productive.”

But instead of buying one more piece of KM or portal software or hosting one more conference, Euan had thrown out the playbook and started doing some weird things. Like putting in place a forum where people could ask any question they liked to the BBC as a whole, without much if any filtering or specifying where the question should ‘go’ to be answered. Like launching this capability with very little fanfare, instead of as much as possible. And like trusting that word would get around to the people at the Beeb, and that they could be trusted to use it appropriately and professionally. And the rumours were clear about what happened next: it worked.

So clearly, I needed to talk to this guy. I got my first chance at a session in 2007 where I was a panelist and Euan was in the audience. During the question and answer portion he identified himself, and then made it clear to me (and everyone else in the room) that our positions should have been reversed that day. And he did it not by being combative or a know-it-all, but instead by demonstrating his experience and insight every time he spoke.

Those qualities have carried through in every interaction I’ve had with him since, and everything of his I’ve read, including this book. And in the years I’ve known him I’ve learned one more thing about Euan: he’s passionate about making things better. The truly wonderful thing about the movement he and I are interested in – call it the social web, or social business, or Enterprise 2.0, or whatever – is that it makes two important things better at once. It improves business outcomes, and it improves the work lives of people within businesses because it gives them a voice, and a chance to manifest what Nelson Mandela calls their “spark of genius.”

This book is as insightful, unconventional, and original as its author. I’m thrilled to see that he’s taken the time to write down what he’s learned so that the rest of us can benefit from it. This book will change how you see things, and it will change what you do.

Thanks, Euan, for writing it.

Andrew McAfee

Principal Research Scientist at MIT and author of Enterprise 2.0

INTRODUCTION

Who is this book for? Well, it is really for anyone who works and is interested in how the web and the Internet are affecting the way we work now and will do in the future. It is not a “how to” book nor, I hope, is it a cyber-utopian vision of the future. There are enough of both of those around already. I prefer to think of it as a collection of ideas that individually or together can make the web more understandable and useful in the world of work. Whether you have “got it” already or not there can be little doubt that the impact of the web in the workplace is increasing. More people use it more of the time to do more stuff. Our workplaces are lagging behind what we can do at home and the pressure is increasingly on us to keep up. How do you do this as an individual and as an organization? Hopefully the ideas in this book will help you to work that out.

You can read this book from start to finish or you can read the chapters individually if you like. Browse the index and dip into topics that catch your eye. Each chapter is intended to be just long enough for a visit to the executive restroom … Enough to help convey the essence of an aspect of the web at work. Enough to whet your appetite to get involved, or to help you understand what other people are going on about and maybe encourage you to let them do more.

I read an inordinate amount of management, productivity, and self help books. I know the kind that have worked for me and those that haven’t. The ones that work pique my interest. Suggest things to me rather than lecture at me. Give me a sense of possibility rather than a sense of foreboding. So I wrote the book with this in mind, to help you understand the potential of the web at work. To help you gain traction and to engage others in the changes you are trying to bring about. It is not a management textbook nor is it a self help book, it is somewhere in between.

I don’t talk about technology much in this book. It is more about what technology is enabling rather than which tool does what. However I have included at the end an overview of the currently available types of tools for those of you not already familiar with the technologies available. Hopefully this will be enough to give you a sense of what I am talking about when I refer throughout the book to “these tools”.

I am not saying that the social web is for everyone. You can take it or leave it. You or your organization may not feel ready for it now. I do believe that it offers possibilities to everyone and its use in business is ultimately inevitable. However people have to adopt it for their own reasons and they can’t be forced. Those who are successful at deploying social tools in business tend to be good at enticing people into their use and try to make them relevant and useful to as many people as possible. I have tried to do the same in this book. It is like a commonplace book of ideas, trinkets, or nuggets to draw you in. Ideas to make you feel more capable. Practices to make you more effective. I hope you enjoy reading it.

1

WE ALL NEED TO GROW UP

We are used to thinking of the world in terms of mass. Big things like nation states, religions, society, the media. We are used to expecting those big things to look after us and protect us. But the Internet splits those up and breaks them apart. It is made up of networks of individuals, each with their own voice. If we are going to survive the changes we need to see in our institutions we need to help them find that voice. We need to help them grow up.