Internal use of Social Media is *SCARY*

I'm starting to dislike talking about social media and it's tools in the workplace. The minute I get the word "social" out of my mouth I get a huge backlash of "No!", "Can't!", "Why?" and "You've got to be crazy!"

I understand where the conflict comes from. Every day there is something posted on the interwebs about the abuse, misuse, and general foolery that goes on with things like Facebook and Twitter. Outside of my chosen community of learning professionals, I find most people very short sighted when it comes to incorporating these tools into the workplace.

The marketing and revenue possibilities are very clear to most businesses. But what about utilizing the same tools internally to foster relationships within the corporate realm? These are the arguments I hear most often:

"We won't be able to control what information they post!"

Hate to say it but your employees are already giving out bad information. They are just doing it around the water cooler, in the lunch rooms, and out at the smoker's corner. They send out bad information in e-mails to each other and write incorrect documentation. What social media tools (Wiki's, discussion boards, and blogs) do is illuminate this. But what they also do is give employees a clearer view of what is going on around them, captures tribal knowledge, provides a way for people to have their voices heard and fosters connectivity in the workplace.

One solution I have proposed to my team is to utilize our collaboration system's (SharePoint 2007)features to provide a way to capture, monitor, and correct this bad information. For discussion boards in our communities of practice focused on particular systems, let the SME's monitor them and serve as a pathway for resolving and recording support questions. For our Wiki's (which we utilize for publishing task oriented how to guides), SME's can post new or corrected information, but it is sent to the content owner for review and approval before being published. Blogs I use in a different way, not for posting my random thoughts but for recording staff meeting minutes and research that I gather throughout my day that my team might be interested in.

I don't post about my wild weekends out. I know better than that. That leads me to:

"Our employees could abuse the tools, post inappropriate things!"

Um, yeah. That type of behavior is already going on as well just in different ways. And HR is handling it. Yes, you should develop a social media policy - but how does it really differ from having an e-mail policy (don't forward jokes or videos the workplace) or a abuse of work place tools policy (no personal calls, don't make personal copies, don't browse the internet for anything other than work)? Remember when email was a restricted tool at most businesses? Or having internet access at all? We all know now that the benefits far outweighed the risks. While I'm sure an employee along the way will consider it their own personal Twitter and make a misstep, if the expectations are set in the beginning without massive restrictions, I believe most professional, career minded individuals will use it for good and not evil.


"My employees will waste time and resources chatting about non work related things!"

Again, big shocker, THEY ARE ALREADY DOING THAT! What this chattiness does is foster relationships and a sense of community. If you are ready to banish social media for this reason, then you might as well ban conversations around the water cooler.

And if employee post innocuous things about their lives in discussion boards, all the better - because maybe I won't have to hear stories about the last fishing trip my cranky IT guy went on - I can just read about it I choose to. This way, other people who congratulate him on 12lbs fish he caught have a way to engage him in conversations that maneuver around his crankiness and lead to productivity.


"Social media? Isn't that just for keeping in touch with friends and sharing silly information?"

YouTube has been my savior when learning about SharePoint 2007. If I didn't have access to it, I would have been less productive as I would have struggled to find the information I needed to learn quickly. I follow countless blogs, receive daily emailed tips, monitor Twitter feeds for the online tools I use, and use discussion groups to reach out to others in my field when I am stumped on a issue and lack the experience or resources in my company.

Oddly enough, when I reveal how I learned to create new tools and processes I bring to my team - they are shocked and amazed that I even thought to look at the box connected to the interwebs that is on my desk

I kid. I kid. It's only a little shock and amazement.

So what now? How does the lowly cog in the corporate wheel convince leadership to take a chance on social media tools?

By showing examples. If you aren't restricted already, that is. I didn't ask to blog my meeting notes on our internal system - I just did it and explained to my team how to access the rss. I didn't ask to build a blog internally, I just convinced a team member to stop sending out newsletter emails and to post instead. Start small with easily controllable information to show the benefits in productivity.

Coach others to follow you. I believe that this is a bottom up rather than a top down revolution. I could care less if leadership blogged, that's not what I'm interested in. I'm interesting in what my team is doing, what the team next to me is doing and how it might affect my work, and what is going on across the street in our other office because I never see those people face to face.


Or use it outside of work and bring the information in, blatant about how you got it. I printed off blogs, twitter feeds, and other ilk to convince my leadership to pursue building communities of practice with social media tools to drive them. I played YouTube videos on my iPhone to my supervisor when asking for additional training (Look, I can get this for free.....if you let me ). I fought for the ability to view ning.com in order to stay in touch with other professionals and learn from them. I had no shame, no fear, and consistently referenced it as the pathway I chose to self educate and self support. When my leadership realized that they could educate me and increase my productivity for no cost.....oh you should have seen their faces.


After the AimWest Social Media Confab, I plan on posting more on policy, legality issues, and the free speech impacts on the internal use of SM. Somehow I got roped in to sitting on a panel about social media and productivity (Me!?!? Really!, Sweet!). I will be posting my presentation after and live blogging from the event.