Re-inventing management with social media

Is social media changing how management works? It could be the case at Telstra.

Yesterday I went along to hear Telstra’s Paul Geason speak at the American Chamber of Commerce lunch in Sydney.

Geason, who is Group Managing Director for the company’s Enterprise and Government division, was speaking on some of the findings from Telstra’s Clever Australian program along with some of the technology trends he’s encountered in big business and public organisations.

The bulk of Geason’s presentation I reported in an article for Comms Day, and much of his observations about enterprise technology trends wouldn’t surprise keen observers of the industry or regular readers of this blog.

What did stand out though were his comments on how social media is changing management behaviour at Telstra where over 25,000 registered users of the company’s Yammer platform have direct access to the company’s CEO, David Thodey.

Social media is just going crazy. Within Telstra now we have over 25,000 of our staff registered on Yammer. It has been a phenomenon. It’s playing this really interesting role of breaking down the hierarchy in our organisation.

Which is not just because of the technology but it’s also got something to do with our CEO.

He is on Yammer just about every single day of the week. There is not an issue that hits that site that he won’t pick up and direct to the right place to get it to the right place and have it dealt with.

Our people love it, they would never have imagined they could get that level of access and input and intervention from the CEO.

There’s a certain transparency that has come to our organisation that didn’t exist previously which is really great for the levels of engagement of our people and very challenging for us as leaders in having to deal with that level of visibility that was not there before.

I think it’s really changing how organistations are operating.

Paul Geason’s comments are a good example of changing management structures. Not only does it bring accountability to executives, it also means organisations can respond quickly to changing marketplaces – something covered in the Future of Teamwork presentation back in 2010.

A few years ago, no-one would have thought of Telstra as being an open, collaborative organisation yet today it’s gone quite a way down the path to becoming one.

The key though to this is having senior management buying into the process. Without that leadership many companies might be facing a tough future.

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Live Blogging from the Dreamforce keynote

A live commentary of the Dreamforce keynote session

01.29

So the session begins with some case studies and interviews with happy Salesforce customers including Comcast, Deliottes and a not-for-profit.

At the front of the bloggers section, things are pretty civilised but that will change in a few minutes as the doors are about to open for delegates.

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11.55

Now we’re into the final run, Marc revisits the Touch mobile plaform and starts the final ‘vignette’ which is Burberry.

The thrust of the Burberry video is how the company is using all of the various Salesforce tools.

“It sounds like Minority Report” Marc asks, “it is” says Angela Ahrendts the CEO of Burberry.

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11.44

George and Dan demonstrate a smart QR-code enabled Coke vending machine. One should worry if the Daleks get this technology.

Now Marc talks with Coca-Cola on integrating an SAP back end with a Salesforce social platform before winding up.

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11.40

George gives a big thank you to those who’ve contributed to the Ideas Exchange and then introduces Salesforce Identity to manage the enterprise social media indentity.

Is this a direct competitor to Google+ or to Microsoft?

The single point of user management was a selling point for the various Microsoft services shown at last week’s Australian TechEd.

Should Salesforce be able to get traction with a corporate identity service then it creates a real threat to Eric Schmidt’s concept of Google+ being the identity management service of choice.

George shows off how the cloud services can be bought together with intelligent vending machines that can even track who scarfed all the diet coke.

 

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11.28

Now we have a look at Coca-Cola with a historical look at their advertising.

50,000 tweets a day about Coca-Cola and they try to answer every one that is a question.

The concept Coca-Cola putting forward of personalised drink dispensers linked to reward programs and social media is interesting. While it may not work for soda, this is something we will see.

Now George Hu, COO of Salesforce takes the stage. George has a good story himself as he started at the company as an intern.

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11.19

So the work.com system works around awarding badges. Do we get a drink if the word ‘gamification’ is used?

The integration into Amazon allows managers to create incentive prizes.

Tim Campos the CIO of Facebook is introduced by Marc. Applause from part of the audience – not sure if that’s fanbois or Facebook employees.

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11.10

Now we get the demonstration of how Salesforce are looking to change the HR department with Work.com

In many ways the social angle makes sense for HR, one of the failures in the modern corporation is how the employee management has become depersonalised. Even the term “HR” illustrates the industrial machine mindset.

Joh Wookey, EVP work.com and social applications, show off their HR software.

Facebook was one of Work.com’s first customers. This is an interesting alliance.

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11.01

Wow! Marc Benioff is almost as tall as Tony Robbins. I wouldn’t like to meet those two in a dark alley.

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10.59

Harris announces a secure, Salesforce integrated version of Dropbox, Chatterbox.

This is an interesting product as one of the concerns of CIOs and IT folk is the potential security risks of staff sharing documents on public cloud services.

Harris demonstrates how Virgin can use Chatter to expedite customer support. It would have been interesting to how Virgin Australia would have used this feature during their reservations system implosion two years ago.

Notable during Harris’ presentation is how integral iPads are in the demonstration.

Another aspect of the support demonstration is real time advice to passengers through inflight wireless networks and personal IFE systems.  It would be hard to see how this could work on airlines like United.

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10.50

Virgin America’s turn arrives. The fastest growing airline in the US using Chatter.

Thirty percent of communication in Virgin happens through tablet devices.

A big call for Chatter and now Salesforce co-founder Parker Harris takes over the presentation from Mark Benioff.

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10.46

Now HP. Now this is a company that needs help both with customers and internally.

George Zimmer, Mens Warehouse CEO now joins Mark and makes the point that his business was built on a billion dollars worth of advertising to baby boomers, marketing to Millennials requires selling through social media.

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10.41

The reskinned Radian6 control panels are shown for the CBAs social presence.

Andy Lark of the CBA joins Mark Benioff, “banking has always been a social business,” Andy says.

 

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10.30

“By 2017, CMOs will spend more on IT than CIOs” quotes Benioff

Brett Queener EVP of Salesforce’s marketing cloud.

“Social is the biggest change to marketing in sixty years” says Brett. It’s interesting that marketing ceased being social.

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10.28

And now the Aussie contingent. I’m not sure if I’d call the Commonwealth Bank an “amazing company”.

Kaching appears as the CBA first product being showcased which isn’t surprising.

CBA claim Facebook and Radian6 are one of their most effective marketing platforms.

“It’s not about technology, it’s about meeting customers’ needs better.” Is this the same Commonwealth Bank we know in Australia?

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10.24

Now Jeremy Stoppelman from Yelp! joins Benioff.

“Mobile is the core” says Stoppleman which is obvious.

“Monetizing mobile” – is Yelp making a profit?

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10.20

Some screenshots of the control panel for Service Cloud tracking customer issues through social media.

The demo continues in showing the call centre and service desk applications in bringing up a customer’s social media activity along with their service history.

Now we see how customers can use Facetime or any onboard video to diagnose service problems.

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10.11

Now a case study from gaming company Activision. Salesforce’s videos are definately more interesting than a boring IBM style whitepaper.

Fergus Griffin, SVP of Solutions Marketing at salesforce.com shows off the small business aspects of the Servicecloud product.

I wish people would find an alternative to saying “I’m thrilled to announce….”

 

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10.03

One could say Powerpoint free sales presentations could be one of mankind’s greatest achievements and concludes Hilary’s product demo.

Marc now interviews the CEO of Rossignol, Bruno Cercley before moving onto a Charles Schwab executive.

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09.56

Hilary Koplow-McAdams, President of Salesforce’s Commercial/SMB Business Unit takes the stage to announce the new products announced this morning which we covered earlier today

The audience seems a little underwhelmed by the new Touch iPhone app.

Hilary takes the hall through how the various products integrate through a demo around Rossignol who were showcased in the previous segment.

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09.48

The production values in the videos are exquisite. Salesforce don’t cut corners when it comes to making a promotional clip.

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09.46

And now the business case studies start. It might be worth slowing down the live blog for a while.

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09.44

And so ends the GE segment. As @evanshrugged says on Twitter;

Loving #Dreamforce, but since they’re interviewing GE employees I must say #RememberTesla. GE sucks.

 

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09.40

Beth Comstock from GE claims her sales team are 100% digitised.

Demonstrating using Chatter for customer,  maintenance and design teams working on the early Boeing Dreamliner GEnx engines.

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09.37

“The social revolution is a trust revolution.”

Benioff asks “are you and your company going through a social revolution?’

And now the story of GE and Marc Benioff’s 30 minute conversation on the future of GE with Jeff Immelt.

“I believe the future of GE is the man-machine interface” said Immelt, “we  believe the revenue future is becoming a customer centric business.”

GE Share: Jet engines with APIs – a social network around an aircraft turbines or CT scanners that structures customer information and service details.

And now a promo video on GE proclaiming itself to be a social company.

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09.30

“It’s a customer revolution” states Benioff as he prowls the aisles of the hall.

Social is “a fundamental change in business. We  saw that to be really successful in this time we had to be a company customers could trust. We’d have to have a level of transparency that has never been seen.”

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09.24

We’re in a social revolution — “you only have to see the news this morning to see how a video can change the world.”

“How many companies here today use social computing in your business in some way?” Most people put up their hands.

“Business is social”.

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09.21

“We are standing on the shoulders of giants” — Watson, Gates, Ellison, Sergei Page all get a mention as building the tech industry with a special shout out to Steve Jobs.

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09.19

For the last decade, Marc has been travelling the world saying “the cloud is coming”.

Putting 1% of equity into charity is “the best decision we have every made” creating million of grants, donations to 16,000 non-profits and 350,000 hours in hours donated by Salesforce staff.

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09.15

Now Marc Benioff takes the stage and thanks the audience for making Salesforce the success it has been.

 

Marc Benioff onstage at dreamforce

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09.12

The clip now goes through some of the applications for mobile commerce; aircraft engineers using their iPads to service planes, ordering hot dogs from your stadium seat and, most unlikely of all, making flying a pleasure.

 

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09.09

Impressive promotional clip to kick off the keynote. A big emphasis on the mobile phone and social.

Too many stats to recount, it’s like a social media expert’s dream.

“Everything is social, everything is in the cloud.”

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09.06

And now MC Hammer takes the stage. Sadly he’s lip synching most of it except for the last rap.

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09.01

Excitement grips the room as the safe harbour investment statement is read out.

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08.59

Now Evan Trent from the School of Rock comes onto the stage to discuss how franchisees use Salesforce’s small business tools like Do.

I had a beer with Evan last night at the media reception, School of Rock has a big operation and they’ve streamlined what was the typical ad-hoc small business mess onto the cloud with Google Apps and Salesforce.

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08.49

So Do.com is kind of a competitor to Basecamp that plugs into Facebook and Google+

Sean announces a Do app for Android and open APIs for developers. We’ll probably hear about many more APIs and app releases.

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08.46

Sean Whitely from Salesforce’s Do.com is now up to give a demo of the business social media platform

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08.44

The San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee now joins the event. He’d be pretty happy with 90,000 attendees today.

Ed makes the case for San Francisco as a technology hub – “San Francisco; innovation capital of the world” and he’s declaring October to be Innovation Month.

“Vote Early and Vote Often” for city Proposition E that gives tax breaks to technology companies based in San Francisco.

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08.37

The customer interviews continue with a small business story in local business Carlos’ Bakery and multinationals in Schneider Electric and Accenture.

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08.34

Whoops! The time settings on the blog were set to Sydney time, so the initial date stamp was 17 hours out. All fixed now.

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Reaching connected communites

How do associations and clubs make sure they are visible on the web.

As our homes and communities become more connected, people are expecting to find all their information online. How do associations and clubs make sure they are visible on the web.

This is the transcript of the opening keynote to the Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association’s 2011 conference. The accompanying slideshow is available on Slideshare.

Reaching Connected Communities

Thank you very much for the kind introduction and the opportunity to open Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association’s 2011 conference.

We’re in a time of history where all of us have the planet’s information at our fingertips and the ability to broadcast our own views and beliefs to the world.

Increasingly our roles as productive members of society are determined by our access to that information and our ability to use it.

Seniors computer clubs have a critical role in ensuring older generations have the opportunity to contribute to the connected society of the 21st Century.

The problem for clubs is that all of us struggle to be heard through the noise of the online world. This morning we’ll have a look at what tools computer clubs can use to stake their claim on the Internet and be found on the web.

It isn’t just clubs affected by this, many of the traditional models of media and business are struggling with these changes and this presents opportunities for computer clubs and community organisations.

Underlying the use of these tools there are the principles that I call the four C’s –community, collaboration, conversations and communications.

Communications

Of the four, communications is the most traditional area. We need to be talking to those who need our assistance.

We have to be telling people how we can help them, what our services are and of course when and where the clubs meet.

In a traditional way, we advertised, or had articles put into the local papers and other publications. These channels are evolving in the digital era and are important to clubs as the people you want to reach out to are those who aren’t using the web effectively.

We also have newer communications platforms in local search, mobile apps and social media.

All of these channels complement each other and allow us to post relevant and timely messages that keep members and the public up to date with key issues.

With search engines and social media now the main ways that people research and find information, it is more important than ever that clubs have a legitimate online presence.

Communications isn’t just about getting the message across, it’s also about working together and many of the cloud and social media tools like Google+, GoToWebinar and Webex allow us to have conversations with the housebound and dispersed groups.

Conversations

Traditional broadcast methods of communicating do not encourage conversations. If you want to have your voice heard in the local paper you have to write a letter to the editor which may take weeks to be published, if at all.

In reality there was no conversation. The owner of the printing press or broadcasting licence controlled the message and who was allowed in the discussion.

Today’s online tools today allow us to talk to our audience. This is a great advantage for community and volunteer groups.

This is something that big companies and governments, with respect to the minister, struggle with and it is where computer clubs and other community organisations will increasingly carry out an important role.

Collaboration

One of the traditional problems with volunteer groups is that much of the work fell on one or two individuals. The cloud computing tools of today mean groups can collaborate far better and take the load off key members.

Tools like Google Docs, Dropbox and WordPress mean that the load can be shared among a group and no longer has to rely on one person to update the website or complete meeting minutes.

These cloud computing tools allow clubs to work together better internally, improve efficiency and engage more effectively with their communities.

Community

The most important part of clubs is communities.

One of the problems we’ve seen in the 20th Century is that the rise of the motor car and broadcast media fragmented our communities.

Online tools, particularly social media, will work to bring communities back together, a process that’s going to accelerate as the era of cheap credit ends and the limitations of government are going to become apparent.

The tools

So what are the tools we can use for our clubs. I’m going to run through some basic ones. This is by no means a definitive list and you may find alternative tools that suit your organisation’s needs better.

These are listed on my website and at the end of my presentation I’ll give the web addresses to this presentation online so you don’t have to write down the scripts.

We’ll look at social media platforms, web publishing services and local search. First let’s look at the collaboration tools that help clubs deliver a better message to the community.

Google Apps

Google Apps, which is free for organisations with less than ten users, is a really handy service that offers basic word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software.

Its great strength is the ability to share those documents, spreadsheets and presentation with other users who can all work on them at the same time.

Google Docs also has a form feature which allows you to setup quick and ready surveys, feedback and booking forms.

Other similar tools are Zoho and Office365 which both offer collaboration and sharing features.

Dropbox

Dropbox, and its competitors Box.net and Microsoft’s SkyDrive, are great tools for sharing files between computers and collaborative teams.

These services allow you to create folders on an Internet service that you can then securely share with other people. It makes working on projects very easy and eliminates the shuffle of email attachments around groups.

If you are using these tools you don’t need to be converted about them.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is the sanity saviour of small businesses and community organisations wanting to get newsletters out.

Managing a mailing list is hard work and these services take the hard work out of them as well as make sure your organisation complies with the spam act.

The service offers templates and sophisticated management tools so you can see who is opening your newsletters and what links they are clicking.

Survey Monkey

Survey monkey helps organisations keep in touch with their members and understand their needs. It’s a great tool for measuring customer satisfaction and feedback.

Google Apps has a more basic survey function built into it as well.

Both are excellent ways of keeping your membership in the loop when it comes to agreeing on new ideas.

Local Search

Local search is changing the way we do business.

Consumers using local as they abandon phone directories and classified ads as the net is a quicker more effective way of searching.

These local search results not only appear at the top of the page but they also feed into the popular social media services.

All organisations, local or otherwise should be listing on these not just to improve their search results but to also appear on other services and on devices like GPS systems.

If you have a relative or friend running a business I’d urge them to list on all of these services as this is an area that is seriously changing the business landscape.

Google Places

It is essential to be listed on Google Places as this will appear at the top of a local search and feeds into other social media and services like street directories and GPS navigators.

Ensure you fill in as many fields as possible, especially the times and days you are open and contact details.

Use the custom fields to improve your keywords and give a richer description of who you are.

You can also upload photos and videos which will improve your search results along with give visitors more information about what you do.

True Local

News Limited’s answer to Google Local ties into News’ local newspaper network.

True Local charges for some functions that are free in Google Places and offers additional free services like the ability to upload Word and PDF documents.

Sensis

Sensis is digital roadkill, the most common complaint with the print edition now is that it’s too small to read and the phone book doesn’t make a good monitor stand anymore.

However, Sensis’ free listing is important as it feeds into NineMSN’s search which is the default on Windows computers.

You’ll also receive a free listing in the printed Yellow Pages for what it’s worth, which to be fair is probably where the most digitally challenged folk will find you.

Social Media

In recent years we’ve been lead to believe that social media is something bigger than the industrial revolution that will cure various tropical diseases, rescue broken business models and make a cup of tea for you in the morning.

The reality is social media is changing the way communities and markets communicate. It’s the 21st Century’s town square or village tavern.

Social media services are great for driving traffic to your site and excellent for listening to trends, monitoring news and talking to your community. They are also the greatest driver for people getting online.

Facebook

Contrary to stereotypes, the fastest growing group among Facebook’s 800 million users are seniors.

This is the biggest opportunity for clubs as the late adopters – the sceptics who’ve resisted going online are now doing so, if only to talk to their grandkids.

There’s a view that Facebook, and most other social media services, are for teenagers putting up pictures of cats and talking about what they did last weekend. That’s wrong on many levels as the service cuts across all demographics and groups.

Facebook Pages

Like a Google Places page, a Facebook Page is free and vital to clubs and businesses. If you have relatives running a business, they should also sign up for a free site.

Increasingly this is where the public goes to online and we have to be there. You can also add events and publicise them through these pages. Your community can contribute and share to your page.

Get 25 members to like your page and you can claim the full name as well.

Google+

Like Facebook, Google+ has a free pages function for community groups and pages. However it remains to be seen how much traction Google+ will get as the service develops.

Google itself seems to be confused about what Google+ actually is, Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman, calls it an identity service rather than a social media platform. This confusion of what Google Plus actually is doesn’t fill me with optimism on the service’s future.

Apart from the social aspect, Google+ has some interesting collaboration tools such as Hangouts, that allow ten people to work together. If you have a webcam installed, and most new systems come with one, you can set up a group for training or collaboration.

Along with Google+ there are other webinar programs such as GoToWebinar or Webex and Skype’s conferencing feature does a very job at this as well.

Twitter

As a conversational and listening tool Twitter is excellent, although it has been largely mis-sold by the social media business community as a marketing and PR tool.

Twitter allows you to be ahead of the news cycle as most journalists use it to find stories. My own use of Twitter is as a news source.

It’s a good way of keeping up to date on what is happening in communities and with connecting with individual journalists and opinion makers.

Own your platform

The website is your site and your property. Overlooked the dangers of not owning the space you are publishing on.

Websites have become easier to use and build. It you’re using a service like Blogger or WordPress you can get a site running for as little as seven dollars a year and you can be delegating access to various members of the group.

Your website is the centre of your online presence and your home base in the digital economy.

Blogger

Blogger – Google’s free blogging service – is a great tool for getting a website running.

Easy to use, with dozens of templates and plugins for services like e-commerce, newsletters, social media and events it’s an effective and quick way to get a website running.

You can also use your own business domain name for free. Which means you can get online for under $50 a year.

WordPress

WordPress is the most popular web content management system. Offering a vast number of templates and plug ins with the advantage of a big community of developers to support the product.

The software also allows an easy upgrade path to other services like Drupal.

Not business as usual

This is not business as usual.

Many of our business and political users are locked into 1980s ideologies and business models that are rapidly being challenged.

In the media we have a whole generation of journalists who are seeing their careers being twisted out of shape by forces they don’t recognise, something that has already happened to the record industry that thought it could use the old business model of developing new technologies that would extend their playlists in the way the LP had in the 1970s and CD in the 1980s.

We see this in the consumer goods industries where old business models are being challenged.

Earlier this year Bernie Brooks, the chief executive of Myer, signed a deal with one of China’s biggest contract manufacturers to make Myer’s homebrand clothes.

The problem with this is it’s the 1980s model. Today consumers can research these things and they will quickly figure out that Myer’s $200 branded shoes are made in the same factory and little different from those you can by for $50 at Target or Lowes.

This mindset illustrates the problems of established businesses and it’s no problem that Coles and Harvey Norman are campaiging to obstruct online shopping in an environment where the informed consumer is able to circumvent the old distribution and retail models.

In many ways these are modern equivalents of the stagecoach operators and it’s no co-incidence that a hundred years ago this year that Cobb & Co went broke. This is risk that any business runs when it is unfortunate to have managers who ignore trends.

Addressing the digital divide

Seniors computer clubs have an important part in today’s society.

The real digital divide is not across age, it is not between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants”, the real divide is between those who are prepared to understand and use these online tools and those who won’t.

Those who won’t are going to be increasingly isolated from a world that is going online. At a time where we’re seeing the NBN rolled out, the launch of 4G networks and increasing use of the web by business and government agencies it’s going to be essential to have some knowledge of the online world and the tools to use it.

Being on the wrong side of the divide will make it increasingly hard to access services and information.

The role of groups like the local seniors’ computer group is to help people remain valued and productive members of our community in today’s connected society.

Hopefully I’ve given you some ideas this morning on how to carry out the important role you have in this decade of great change.

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Online tools to turbocharge your business

Flying Solo’s Independents Day looked at how the web can help business productivity.

Flying Solo’s 2011 Independents Day conference featured our Online Tools to Turbocharge your Business.

We looked at some of the most popular cloud computing, social media, productivity and collaboration tools that can help a business make more money and grow faster.

Most importantly, it shows how business owners can free up some of their most valuable asset – their time.

Some of the tools we discussed include the popular social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and how they can be used for customer service and market intelligence on top of being marketing services.

We also looked at how collaborative and cloud computing services can help small businesses work together and improve the ways consultants can work with big business clients. In many ways, collaborative tools like Google Apps, Zoho and Dropbox help build team and deliver projects more effectively.

The Online Tools to Turbocharge Your Business presentation itself is available on Slideshare and if you subscribe to our newsletter, you’ll receive a free copy of the accompanying Online Business Essentials e-book.

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