A checklist: Engagement Guidelines for The Social Organization

We have explored the attributes of  The Social Organization earlier in this series and I now wanted to take a moment to give guidance for any Social Organization on how they are expected to behave, their rules of the social networking road.

• All accounts on all channels must identify their relationship to the Social Organization.  In other words, be honest, no guerilla marketing where you praise the company you work for without admitting you work for that company.
• Accepted Use Guidelines must be clearly posted on all channels.
• An ongoing training program must exist for all employees who engage with The Social Customer.  New channels and evolving norms require The Social Organization to regularly train their employees.
• All channels must be treated the same for customer service, no line jumping can occur.
• Leverage processes and/or tools to distribute knowledge throughout the organization to increase the speed at which information is delivered through the social units and to the social customers.
• The Social Organization must measure customer satisfaction at each touch point.  This information must be used to modify internal practices as needed.
• Publish customer satisfaction data publicly so that it is available on all channels.

I am sure this list is incomplete, what would you add?  What would you change?

John

If you need help from The Lab, drop me a note. If you would like to view more case studies and interviews, or just want to read about The Social Ecosystem, click on the links and let me know your thoughts.

The Social Ecosystem: Developing Social Usage Guidelines

Rules….   Guidelines….  It does not matter if you are in the 38% of companies blocking social media (in the United States), are leaving social media access wide open, or are looking to strategically leverage The Social Ecosystem.  Guidelines about what is, and is not, acceptable, are critical to the success of your Social Organization.

There are hundreds of great examples of real-world Social Usage Guidelines available across the web.  This post is providing you with a template that you can use to create a set of guidelines for your organization, your Social Organization.

Note that any set of organizational guidelines need to be regularly enforced. I would recommend that Social Organizations review these with new employees and give regular, quarterly is best, training sessions for all employees.  The use of social media is too much a part of how people live to simply train once and expect people to remember your rules.

Also note, only 20% of companies worldwide have a policy for their employees (according to Manpower, see below).  Do not make this mistake.

Without further ado, here is our template.

OVERVIEW

You should make it clear, at the top of your guidelines, that the document applies to both internal and external usage of social media strategies and tool.   Helping people understand that different expected behaviors on both sides of their home/work life is critical for establishing guidelines that make sense to everyone.

Clearly note that this guideline document is supplemental to other existing employee guidelines such as the employee handbook.

LICENSING

Clearly state ownership rules for content created by your employees.  I favor the use of Creative Commons, as used on my blog, but what you use is dependent upon your market, your business, your legal team.  Whatever model is used simply make it clear in the licensing section.

Note that you may also have exceptions in place worth noting.  For example, perhaps research information follows one licensing model while marketing information follows another.  The rules are up to you, of course,  just make them clear.

If you are interested in learning more about Creative Commons check out their web site.

DEFINITIONS

Take the time to clearly define the terms being used by your organization.  The State Department’s Social Guidelines provides a good example. 

GUIDELINES

While the guidelines you define will reflect your Social Organization there are some basics that I feel you should add.  These include:

• There should be different expectations and guidelines established around the use of personal and organizational accounts.
  • Provide guidance on how to indicate if the account is private or organization owned.
  • Make it clear that personal accounts reflect personal opinions, not the opinions of the organization.
• Be clear about what happens if your employees fail to follow the guidelines.  No one wins if you are unclear.
• Note that employee goals and objectives, or equivalent, will go into more detail about how these tools fit into their job function and that achieving defined goals remains the number one priority.
• Provide guidance on the use of appropriate language
• Provide guidance on the types of information that can, and cannot be, shared.
• Provide guidance on how to respond to various request types (e.g. customer service or sales requests).
• Remind employees to listen first, respond second.
• Be clear that comments made are always on the record when responding through the organization’s accounts. 
• Be clear about ownership. If you respond to customer through a social channel the customer considers you the owner of their questions.  Don’t fail them.

Let me know if there are other pieces you would like to see added.

John

If you need help from The Lab, drop me a note. If you would like to view more case studies and interviews, or just want to read about The Social Ecosystem, click on the links and let me know your thoughts.

Getting started within The Social Ecosystem, a checklist

Last November I built a short series to help organizations with their 2010 Social Media Plan.  The series was well received and I think we all learned a lot in the process of writing and commenting back and forth.

Sometimes, however, it really helps to boil things down to a simple checklist, keeping it simple to execute and simple to understand.  I was really excited when I saw Andrew Wilson, Web and New Media at Federal Government – HHS – SAMHSA, post a really good checklist for getting started with Social Media.  I immediately reached out to Andrew to see if I could build off of his checklist to give something to help people within The Social Ecosystem and he was nice enough to agree (Thanks Andrew).

Before we construct the checklist it is important to keep in mind that you must always define your goals up front.  No checklist is perfect on its own.  While it is a great guideline, it is only that, it needs to be modified  to meet the goals you have set forth.

The target audience for this checklist is individuals, groups, or organizations that have no real social media presence and who are seeking to get started.  This is a great starting point for this audience because it focuses on no cost tools and minimal time investment while seeking to maximize your return.  Now, it is true that you get what you pay for and that, as  you progress within The Social Ecosystem you will outgrow this checklist and the tools we discuss.  However, since we are including measurement and goal setting you will be able to decide when you are growing out of this framework and need to move into the Advanced Checklist

Goal Setting

• What are you trying to do?  Are  you just trying to learn about the platforms or is this part of an individual or organization effort.
• What does success look like a month from now?  What does failure look like a month from now?
  • At the beginning focus on simple measures like # of retweets, number of followers, number of fans.  Do not focus on lead generation in month one, you will fail.
• Check out the Social Media Guidelines put together on Mass.gov as the State of Massachusetts has done a nice job providing toolkits for various social media accounts, for security, and for legal guidance.

Setup

To minimize daily execution time you want your social media channels and monitoring setup at the beginning.  I urge you to set up the following channels and, if possible, use the same account name, logos, and profile descriptions throughout. Each channel is simply a way for you to interact with your audience, your customers, your citizens, and they expect a consistent experience.

• Create an account on Twitter.  Andrew notes “The Government Social Media Subcouncil Wiki has links to many good guidance docs, including EPA’s Twitter guidance which can be found at http://govsocmed.pbworks.com/EPA-Social-Media-Guidance-Documents“
• Create an account and page on Facebook. If you are a B2C Organization or a Local Government this is a must have in my opinion.  Others can skip this.
• Create a YouTube account.  Check out the great Youtube toolkit put together by Mass.gov. If your organization is not yet ready to deliver content on YouTube skip this setup.  Most organizations at this stage are not ready so do not feel bad if you fall into this category.
• Create a Slideshare account. Andrew’s post does a great job of leveraging Slideshare for sharing a Word document. You can leverage Slideshare for PowerPoints and other content as well.
• Create a Foursquare and Gowalla account.  If you are a B2C Organization or a Local Government this is a must have in my opinion.  Others can skip this.

Andrew nails it when he discusses setting up free monitoring solutions.  Simply copying what he has already proposed for completeness:

• Google Reader: Set up a Google Reader account for your organization (http://www.google.com/reader).   This will be used as the hub to monitor social media activity
• Twitter Search: Search on three terms relevant to your organization & add to Google Reader (http://search.twitter.com/). 
  • These terms could be the name of your organization, its acronym, issues relevant to your mission or issues that are of particular relevance or importance. Multiple word searches should use quotes. Click the “Feed for this Query” icon at the top right to add each of these to your Google Reader account.
• Google Alerts: Search on three terms relevant to your organization & add to Google Reader (http://www.google.com/alerts).These could be the same words as for the Twitter search but it alternate terms can be used. Relevant settings should be: Type: Everything – this will catch news, blogs, video, etc.Deliver to: Feed

Personally, I still rely on Google Reader as I have set up feeds for dozens of my favorite blogs and scan this at least twice daily.

Execution

Minimize execution time, that is part of the focus of this checklist.  Andrew proposed a 20 minute daily process which is perfect for starting out.  As you begin to see results you will want to double this, spending 20 minutes just before, or just after, lunch and 20 minutes at the end of the day.

• Monitor (10 min): As Andrew suggests, “Read through feed items in Google Reader.   If you don’t get through everything, mark the remainder as read. Watch for and note individuals that are getting significant attention or appear to be either strong advocates or critics of your organization or work.”
• Post (5 min): As Andrew notes post at least once daily on the accounts you have set up (most likely just Twitter).
  • If you found an article in Google Reader that is relevant to your audience share it.
  • If your organization is already blogging and has posted something new, share it.
  • DO NOT tell your audience what you had for lunch everyday either.  In time you want to personalize your efforts but when starting out focus on adding value in terms of sharing great content.
• Engage (5 min): I agree completely with Andrew when he notes “Find ways to interact and begin building community.  Example could Retweeting (RT) other accounts, finding new accounts to follow, thanking new followers, thanking people for mentioning your organization or your work.”
  • If you find other news sources that you should monitor add them back to your Google Reader feed.

Measurement

At the beginning of this process  we discussed the need to define your goals, define what success and failure looks like.  Every month, take 30 minutes to review:

• Are you executing as planned?  If you are going over the suggested time,  or not executing daily, than you are failing.  Correct this immediately. 
• Review what success and failure is supposed to look like, in terms of real numbers, at this point.  Set your targets for next month.
  • For the first three months only focus on simple measures, only focus on following the checklist above.

Every three months step back and have a longer review session and ask yourself:

• Is this effort worthwhile?   In the majority of cases the answer will be Yes.  However, the answer is not YES for every individual and every organization so answer this question.
• Are you ready to become truly strategic in your approach?  In the beginning of this process you are not truly strategic in the sense that you have not yet mapped  your efforts to higher level individual or organizational goals.

Some will never need to go beyond this level of investment.  However, through goal setting and measurement/review you will be able to make an informed decision if, and when, it is time to take this to another level.

John

If you need help from The Lab, drop me a note. If you would like to view more case studies and interviews, or just want to read about The Social Ecosystem, click on the links and let me know your thoughts.

Get your customer service act together…. Or else..

As customers we have all experienced bad customer service at some point.   The impact of this negative experience can range from minor grumbling to completely walking away from a given brand or product (ask me why I won’t buy another Ford). 

In this poor economy leaders often fall back to looking at customer service as a cost center and this viewpoint is common across the public and private sector. The focus shifts to revenue generating activities like giving out more parking tickets or rushing products to market.  Customer service organizations see reductions in headcount, lower quality tools, and lack of training as the customer service organization is not seen as the revenue generators.

This is clearly not a smart decision in most cases and new research makes it clear that “Customer Service Is Crucial To Repeat Business and Profitability“.  According to this research “61% of Americans report that quality customer service is more important to them in today’s economic environment, and will spend an average of 9% more when they believe a company provides excellent service“.  Combine this with the fact that more than 80% of consumers use recommendations from friends or family in the decision-making process and it is easy to understand why bad customer service can easily lead to poor sales, lost customers, and ultimately to lay-offs and company closure.  Did I go too far?

When I talk to organizations about Social Support Communities I like to point out that poor customer service costs companies $83 Billion annually.  $83 billion, that is a number that should catch your eye.  As you look at where you are making cuts in your organization weigh the short-term and long-term impact of these cuts.  If you do not, you’re going to end up being one of those companies being discussed in next years studies.

John

If you need help from The Lab, drop me a note. If you would like to view more case studies and interviews, or just want to read about The Social Ecosystem, click on the links and let me know your thoughts.

The Social Ecosystem: Developing your business case

In order to do a good job, achieving true success over a long time, you must always start with a clear understanding of your goals.  Yes, I will continue saying that until everyone I talk to repeats “start with the goal in mind”.  Please repeat after me….  Start with the goal in mind.

Jess Weiss, Project & Social Media Coordinator for Mass.gov, touches upon the why in a good post she wrote not long ago.  She says it well when noting “It all goes back to that original question: “why.” Not every social media platform or social community works in every situation. By asking “why” we take that first step towards creating a communications strategy”.

The Social Organization should always start off their efforts with a business case.  A business case that clearly explains the why.  A business case that explains the cost and the expected return on the investment.  To help you in this effort I am including a business case.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Briefly explain what your project is for, what are the goals.  Include a summary of:

• How much will this project cost in both time and money?
• How much money will this project earn or save the organization?
• How long will it take to see a return on this investment?  For example, the return on investment (ROI) over three years will be 82% with a payback period of 18 months.

ALTERNATIVES
Are there other ways to meet this goal?  Most people want to know that you have considered other options.

• Explain the other options.
• Include the do nothing option.  There is always the option to do nothing.  Explain why action is required.
• Why did the other options fall short?
• What is the cost of the other options and the ROI you would see from the rejected options?

BENEFITS
Dig deeper now, beyond the executive summary, about what this will benefit The Social Organization.

• Look at internal and external benefits.
• Define real numbers and avoid, as much as possible, weak terms like transparency and engagement.  You are asking for money, make your case.
• Explain how you will measure, how you will confirm, that you are on track.

COSTS
Provide all cost associated with this effort.  Include:

• Software
• Consulting services
• Maintainance fees
• Training

In the Executive Summary you explained the total costs.  It is your goal to explain where this one number came from, including all the miscellaneous pieces of the project that brought you to this one cost number.

ROI
Yes, ROI.  I know many people argue that you cannot measure the ROI of social business, government 2.0, and social media strategies and tactics.  They are wrong.  If you are asking for money you had better understand the return you expect to see from this investment.  Some people point to KPIs vs. ROI.  KPIs are the levers that control  your business engine.  If you do not yet understand how these levers impact your business goals, figure that out now.

ASSUMPTIONS
Be clear about what you are assuming, who you have discussed these assumptions with, and what you have done to confirm that your assumptions are correct..

PROJECT DETAILS
Provide as much information about the project as possible, fleshing out the executive summary. 

Remember, the budget holders in The Social Organization, along with other leaders, are responsible for maximizing the impact of their investments.  Explain how your efforts, the project you are proposing, will help them carry out this mission.  Partner with them and you can make your project a reality.

John

If you need help from The Lab, drop me a note. If you would like to view more case studies and interviews, or just want to read about The Social Ecosystem, click on the links and let me know your thoughts.

The State Departments Social Media Usage Policy

Need something interesting to read?  The United States Department of State publicly released its Social Media Usage policy today and it is worth taking time to check out as it will provide insights for other organizations looking to understand what needs to be in their policies.

While there are dozens of great details in the document here are a few highlights:

• The document speaks to the fact that these guidelines apply to both internal and external social media usage.  Understanding and then addressing this fact is important as these tools offer real value across the entire organization.
• Up front the document makes it clear that other policies are still in effect.  For example, your usage policies should note that items covered in employee handbooks still apply.
• Definitions and terms are defined at the beginning of the document.  Make this clear up front so that there is no room for confusion.
• The document does an excellent job noting the different guidelines for internal and external networks, for personal and professional accounts.  Great job including items like this:  “Department personnel may access and post entries to public, Internet-based social media sites, from OpenNet using their personal profile registered with a personal email address…” 

The document also covers important topics such as monitoring, archiving, and when you need to get approval to post.  While I will create a template as part of The Social Ecosystem effort this comprehensive document would make a great starting point.

John

The Social Ecosystem

Organizations of all types have struggled to come to grips with terms like Government 2.0, Social Business, Social Media, and a long list of others that are floating around book stores, universities, and blogs.

I have spent a lot of time speaking with businesses and government agencies, exploring what is working, what is failing, and seeking to understand where confusion and hype are preventing these organizations from achieving full value from their efforts.  The Social Ecosystem is the result of these efforts and is meant to reduce confusion and offer guidance for organizations across the world.

Lofty goals?  Perhaps, but the Social Ecosystem is not being defined in a vacuum, it will fully leverage many ideas that are already available and will evolve, as needed, as we continue to learn more.

For this post I will discuss, at a high level, the major components of the Social Ecosystem as well as some key definitions.  Over  time I plan to create a table of contents, a section for terms, and break this down into a book-like format. Please be patient as it will take time and we’ll all work through this together.

Key Components

• The Social Ecosystem.   The Social Ecosystem provides a structure within which all types of organizations live and interact.  This ecosystem is open and inclusive of both public and private organizations and remains independent of geography and language.
• The Social Organization.  Organizations ranging from small and medium businesses to enterprises to local and federal governments (and so on) are all social organizations.
  • I will begin by looking at the key behaviors and requirements from an Ecosystem perspective.
  • As we continue we will explore the internals of the Social Organization. I will add in concepts like Social CRM, Enterprise 2.0, and Government 2.0.  There will be no attempt to replace these concepts, instead, they will be included as they fit very well within this model.
  • In the long-term the Social Organization should be thought of as a standard, including various levels of compliance that address security, training, measurement, level of channel neutrality, and more.
• The Social Unit.  The smallest part of the Ecosystem includes teams and individuals.  We will discuss concepts like social currency, the social value cycle (compliments of Paul Doyle, CEO of Proofspace), leadership and organizational structures.

The Social Ecosystem is channel-neutral (thanks Steve Schildwachter) and does not promote any specific tools or vendors.  It will stay open and independent.

Key Definitions

These are a starting point and we will certainly add to these as we move forward.

• Social CRM.  My definition builds off of Paul Greenberg’s stake in the ground.
  • “Social CRM is a philosophy & a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes & social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation to give mutually beneficial value in a trusted & transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s joint ownership of the conversation”
• Enterprise 2.0.  For this work I will use Andrew McAfee’s definition from May of 2006.
  • “Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.”
• Government 2.0. My chosen definition comes from the Australian Government 2.0 Google Group.
  • “Government 2.0 is not specifically about social networking or technology based approaches to anything. It represents a fundamental shift in the implementation of government – toward an open, collaborative, cooperative arrangement where there is (wherever possible) open consultation, open data, shared knowledge, mutual acknowledgment of expertise, mutual respect for shared values and an understanding of how to agree to disagree. Technology and social tools are an important part of this change but are essentially an enabler in this process.”
• Social Media.  The definition I will use is the one given by Brian Solis.
  • “Social Media is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism, one-to-many, to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers.”

That’s all for today, let me know what you think.

John

Google is throwing Microsoft out the door, what does it mean to you?

Business Insider reported that Google has decided to stop using Microsoft products and are now giving its employees the option of either using Apple or Linux alternatives.  While this news is worthy of coverage, and represents the loss of more than 20,000 Windows licenses to Microsoft, I doubt that many other companies will follow.

While the Microsoft operating system is far from perfect, and the Apple interface is clean and easy to use:

• Apple computers cost more than PCs.   This is true for desktops and laptops.  Strike one.
• There are more desktop IT staff trained and available to support a PC-based infrastructure. I have managed IT groups responsible for both and have always found it more difficult to find capable IT engineers for supporting Apple hardware.  While they do exist there are fewer of them around and generally demand a higher salary.  Strike two.
• The Apple interface, while cleaner and easier to use than the PC, is a major change for many business users who already know how to use PCs.  Easier or not, it is a new interface for many business users and there will be productivity losses in switching from PCs to Macs.  Strike three.

While I could continue with my list making for a few hours it all boils down to cost. At the end of the day most businesses will find that a switch from PCs to Macs doesn’t make good business sense. 

What do you think? Anyone disagree?

John

Ideas come from everyone. How well are you listening?

As I noted in yesterday’s post about the power of Social Support Communities, I recently chatted with Todd Sierer, Product Manager for LabVIEW, about their Social Support Community (SSC) efforts.  I also, however, discussed their recent efforts with customer co-creation leveraging the ideation platform from Lithium Technologies.

For those of you who are unsure of what I mean by ideation platform, let me take a second and explain.  An ideation platform is simply a technology solution that enables customers to comments on, and vote for, ideas that will make the product or solution better. As I have explored in the past, companies, federal agencies, our entire government, have started leveraging ideation platforms successfully.  Included in this list are:

• HP collects, reviews, and implements customer ideas with weekly review meetings be a key part of their success.
• When the  Memorial for Flight 93 was designed, solutions from INgage Network helped this non-profit effort that required citizens, private corporations, and government agencies to work together.
• When the Federal Government recently requested citizen feedback for improvements across the government, the IdeaScale platform was used to gather feedback that is already being acted upon by agencies like the GSA.

The LabView product has one major feature release yearly as ell as one mid-year maintenance release.  The team has a clear vision for where the product needs to go, they have a vision.  However, the LabVIEW product also has an active and engaged customer community with great ideas for the product.  The challenge, how to merge the long-term vision of the product from the company perspective with the great insights of their customers.  The solution, an ideation platform.

Clearly there were concerns with deploying the solution, concerns such as:

• What if the ideas requested were not aligned with the strategic direction the company has in mind?
• What if the ideas were great but far too large to carry out in a near-term release?
• What if the ideas were all great but there were far too many to carry out, leaving customers feeling that the LabVIEW team was not really listening?

Fair concerns, of course.  To mitigate these concerns the platform was not marketed heavily to the community, at least not initially.  The LabVIEW team shared with their greatest product champions stating in May of 2009 as a kick-off for their August 2010 release.  Guess what happened:

• Within the first month 300 ideas were generated by the community, ideas are still flowing in as we speak.
• The ideas, according to the team, were fantastic.  In many cases they were minor changes that the development team had simply not realized made a big difference to the customers.
• Starting small, the LabVIEW team selected 13 of the ideas to make it into their yearly release.  These ideas, which are now coded and in their beta, will benefit the entire community.
• The team invested around 200 – 300 development hours on these efforts.  Relatively small but a great start.

The team is doing a good job.  My only words of advice for them, and for you if you start down this path:

• Be genuine.  If you are asking for feedback make sure you are willing to put the effort into delivering value to your customers on at least some of the items they are requesting.
• Carve out time in the budget to carry out these features.  Communicate clearly with customers the level of investment you are planning to put into this new way of working.
• When ideas are selected, highlight these selections.  Use it as an opportunity to publicly acknowledge the customers that have made the suggestions and an opportunity to confirm with your entire community that this is a real process, not just some marketing fluff.

Create value with your customers.

John

The need for social media training is larger than ever

I had the honor of chatting with the Boston SPIN group yesterday during their monthly meeting.  The group, primarily engineering minded professionals, developers, QA, project managers, turned out to hear me discuss the topic of extending thought leadership positions via social media.  Now, to be honest with you, I had expected to have a small turnout as the phrases social media, thought leadership, personal branding, all reek of marketing and turn off many engineering folks.  I was surprised, however, to have a respectable number of somewhat skeptical folks turn out.

While the US economy has added back many IT jobs in the last two months the unemployment rate is still  high (yes, I know, insightful commentary on my part ).  Many of the technology folks in the room were either looking for work or were underemployed.  Too often this is the time that people first begin their networking efforts, far too late for it to be effective.  Start now, while you are happily employed.   It is no longer enough for engineers, or any other profession, to sly be good at their core  job competencies.  All of us must work on our writing skills, on our speaking skills, on our ability to get an idea across and to discuss, perhaps argue, our view points.

What struck me as I did my presentation and conversed with the audience was the fact that many of us are living in a world unto ourselves, far from the mainstream where people have never heard of people like Robert Scoble, Chris Brogan, Jeremiah Owyang.  When I mentioned these thought leaders to the audience, most people had no clue who they were.  Now…. I do not favor building a country of devoted social media junkies but I do favor a society that understands the need to market their skills, their capabilities.  Many of these people have no idea how to raise awareness of who they are much less why they might want to do so.  Look, if you end up unemployed and looking for work do you want to just begin your marketing efforts then?

Here are a couple of tips to get you started, please use these now.

• Are you using LinkedIn?  If not, get on it now.  If you are, make your profile your resume.  LinkedIn is your work profile and it should always match your resume.  Do some people disagree?  Yes, but this is my blog,  not theirs.
• Raise your profile by joining groups on LinkedIn and answering questions being raised in these groups.  Spend 15 – 20 minutes a day doing this.  It does not require a lot of time.
• Join Twitter and use it, spending 5 – 10 minutes after lunch and before the end of your work day (or when you get home).  Look, I thought Twitter was nonsense before I joined it.  It is not nonsense, it is a valuable part of your social media efforts.
• Are you on Facebook?  Decide if you are going to use it for personal or professional purposes.  I recommend keeping it for personal use and not friending co-workers and others you do not know.  Keep in mind, I break this rule but it will make your life much easier if you do not.
• Setup your Google Profile.  It is free, use it.
• Make sure your profile and your photos match on every social site you use.  You want one view of who you are.

If you feel that you have more than the hour a day I’ve laid out above start a blog.  However, only start a blog if you are going to make the time to update it 3 or 4 times a week.  Keep it fresh, keep it interesting.

Take your career seriously and see if you can find a friend who already understands this social stuff.    If that doesn’t work, call me and I can help you out but, of course, I am not cheap so the friend route is always a smart starting point.

A final point for my friends in HR.  If you are not in the 38% of companies that are spending their time blocking social media access and are in the 29% of companies with a solid social usage policy please setup a social media training class for your employees.   Help them learn how to position themselves, and your company, in a professional and positive manner.  It will benefit everyone.

John