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Description
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Falling for social media is a bit like falling in love with the boy or girl from the wrong side of town. You've had the first date, you've fallen in love, and now you want to introduce your new passion to the people back home.
But guess what? They're not impressed.
As you present your proposals for blogging and employee forums to your bosses, you imagine the tumbling of communication hierarchies. They, however, see management anarchy. You envision an interconnected workforce; they see an in-house dating agency. It's like introducing a pole dancer to your maiden aunt.
The trouble is that social media just looks too much like fun for it to be a serious business application. Sure, we want conversations in the company, but only if they are on-brand and aligned to the business mission. Yes, we want collaboration, but not on Facebook. The sad truth is that internal communication is the last bastion of feudalism in 21st-century life. Today we can laugh in the face of politicians, ignore the strictures of bureaucrats, and create and destroy celebrities with a single text message, but we are still supposed to kowtow to our employers like serfs at the annual hiring fair.
At a conference on social media in London last June, organized by simply-communicate.com and Ragan Communications, I asked the audience to name the top 10 barriers to introducing social media into their organizations (see "Anti-Social Media," opposite page). Top of the list was the lack of a demonstrable business case. Three-quarters of the audience felt that they could not justify the cost of implementing these new tools. Now, where have we heard that before? Oh, yes, back in the '70s, when a few brave souls had the temerity to propose that PCs should be placed on every desk,... |
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