Internal communication and social media : move the filter !

May 3, 2011 By 1 Comment

Summary : with the coming of social media in the workplace and the need for internal communication teams to let go and don’t care about what is not their responsibility, the question of information filtering is more important than ever. With the increase in the number of information sources and the need for communication team to fall back on their core duties, information has to be managed at the user lever on both a qualitative and quantitative standpoint. So filters will have to move : formerly set at the publishing level, it needs to move to the receiver level and rely on two pillars. A human one in order to make the concept of social filtering fully operative at a wide scale in the workplace (what is also a major issue in terms of training…). A technological one then because, until today, the social filter has not worked as expected and, moreover, the increase in volume of information will imply the use of intelligent tools to compensate for humans. Filtering is not about authorizing people to publish anymore but about filtering what they receive based on relevance in context.

Before, everything was clear : communication in the enterprise was the job of a dedicated communication department who decided what people needed to know and didn’t care about how employee reacted to this information. Today, this department is not the only source of information and any employee, team, unit will have its own voice.

Please notice that it’s a significant improvement. For what I can see, 2 or 3 years ago, most of the communication departments were more likely to fight against this uncontrolled form of information broadcasting while, today, most of them seem to have understood they need to share the power. That doesn’t mean they are very comfortable with this new challenge, what is is quite logical, but they’re now trying to find how to go with change rather than block it. Remember that it’s not obvious at all for a traditional BE2 team to support an E2E approach and that, instead of criticizing them, helping them to deal with this transformation is a more constructive approach.

It raises two questions : the first is about the place of the communication department on a socialized intranet and the second is about controlling the global information flow.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Intranets and digital workplace, Knowledge & Information management, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Social CRM is not about media but a new approach to customer relationship

February 21, 2011 By 23 Comments

Summary : everyone has an idea, even a rough one, of where social CRM is taking us but no one exactly knows what will be the levers. A common mistake is to keep on managing customers the old way, as a passive target whose only function is to buy in a system where value is created to his detriment. The whole by using new channels. This way of doing things does not improve anything and even harms those who practice it. So we need go step back to basics and manage the customer relationship instead of managing the customer. It forces us to rethink, point by point, the components of this relationship : its subject, the exchanges, stakeholder identities, its follow-up and its exploitation. Social CRM is not a matter of media but a new approach to a customer that has become a stakeholder and an active player of a value co-creation processus.

I had the opportunity to talk with Paul Greenberg, during the last Lotusphere. We shared our opinions about what social CRM was, wasn’t and the state of the art.

Our first acknowledgement was that, even if nearly everybody agree on the big picture, everyone has his own definition and vision. Is it a problem ? Not at all since it’s obvious that, as for enterprise 2.0, so many cultural, organizational and even industry-related factors play a role what makes that’s there’s not a single SCRM model but an SCRM concept that has to be adapted to each organization.

Our second point of agreement was about the “social channel”. Moving from CRM to SCRM does not only mean using new channels to replicate old behaviors. For instance using Twitter of Facebook to push the same special offers as with the old emailings. At best it’s social marketing, at worse it’s spam and, even more, it gets on people’s nerves because they are bombed with useless information while they get no answer when they try to use the same channel to talk to the enterprise. (Yes…it’s a two-ways channel, contrary to email that always mention “do not reply”…strange way to envision customer relationship isn’t it ?).

Consequence of these two points : social crm is rather an approach to customer relationship than a matter a channel. I’d even go further : people can do social CRM “face to face”, by phone, on any channel. What matters is to consider the customer as a stakeholder and draw all the consequences.

So, I suggested Paul what would be, in my opinion, a minimalist social CRM program :

• Segmentation of the audience and delivery of a message, of information and contents, and even specific services for each segment. Contrary to received ideas, enterprises don’t talk a one community but to many communities they don’t own. For instance, an airline will have its own fans, the Airbus A380 fans, those who love travels, their “high contribution” customers, those who are stranded in a far country. Each category expects something different : some want to dream, some “insider information”, some special ofers, some service. Some will never be customer but contribute to establishing the brand online, some are good customers that have to be engaged and retained, some need to be convinced to be acquired.

• Organization a customer case management system that makes that, whatever is the channel that’s used, the message goes inside the organization, is handled by the right person (what would look like the junction of advanced case management and social networking) then goes back to the customer without any break in the flow. (Keeping in mind that it’s not the perfect answer to everything).

It’s a little bit light and minimalist but that may be a good start. In fact, like we agreed with Paul, so few organizations have reached this point that it’s better than nothing for a start.

But, since it appears that it’s about a new vision of the relationship between organizations and their customers, here’s how I’d see things point by point. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Customer Relationship & Marketing, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

On Intranets 2.0 : one person but several roles and attitudes

February 3, 2011 By 1 Comment

Summary : There’s, in the 2.0 mythology, a belief according to which tomorrow’s intranets will be nothing more than social networks and where individuals will be more important than the traditional organic components of the organization. It raises an important question : are social networks the right place for corporate communication. That’s a nice and attractive concept but that’s not much realistic. It’s important to distinguish discussions from official communication (even if this latter can be the subject of a discussion) and, most of all, the person from the position. As a matter of fact, people change and pass while the position and the corporate identities need a continuity of digital identity.

We know that one things that’s peculiar to intranets 2.0 is to make exchanges possible everywhere, on any subjet. We hear, and for good reasons, that intranets are getting networked. But does it means that they’ll become social networks. I don’t think so. As a matter of fact, networks put people on the same level, regardless to hierarchy while this situation may not be desirable in all conditions.

The difference between a social network and a traditional intranet is that, in the first, people represent themselves while in the second they embody a function. Let’s take the example of John Smith, head of communition, and Jenny Jones, a new hired junior who just joined John’s department.

On the traditional intranet, when John speaks, it’s as the head of communiction. His words are the words of the organization, he’s delivering a kind of truth (at least a corporate one). In fact he does not always sign with his name because it’s the department that’s speaking and, even if John may leave tomorrow, the words have to stay. That’s a situation where a person temporalily embodies an impersonal reality. Tomorrow, John may either leave of get a new position within the organization while the department, that has been existing before him, will still extist after him. In some ways that’s a role that’s lent to hum by the organization and he has to return it in good state when he leaves..

If John speaks on the social network, people will, of course, have in mind who he is when they’ll discuss with him. But, on the network, he’s John Smith before all and embodies his own ideas. He can join discussions, share his opinions but, unless he comes to make the corporate message clearer, he represents nothing but himself. Such a person that “goes down” to the network is respected because of his position but will need to go further and contributes “as himself” to gain recognition form all users. Moreover, on the network, he can join discussions about anything that interests him and is not locked into communication issues.

Confusion may be risky and misunderstandings worry organizations. So, thinking that the organization will officially communicate on the network does not look relevant. When John speaks on the intranet, his voice his the voice of the organizations, when he’s on the network is rather looking for conversations, insights, ideas. He can ever use the network to discuss and listen before making a decision.

The case of Jenny is even more interesting. She publishes on the “‘official” part of the intranet but never in her name because she only edits and shares texts that are validated by the hierarchy. The “authority” of her texts does not rely on her position but on her role. Once on the network, what she says only have as much legitimacy as the recognition she’s given on a given topic, based on her previous contributions. What has nothing to do with her position.

Two kinds of authority, two roles but one person. Being able to distinguish the one from the other is essential.

One may make me remark I recently said that even the official part of the intranet should be open to comments and discussions. I still belive it should. My point here is not about “socialization”, but about making people’s voices clearer. Depending on the context and the nature of the message, people will not react the same way, with the same voice, as diplomatically.

We can also try to find subterfuges, like saying that “Communication Department” or “Innovation” department, are members of the network as if they were real people, what would help them to exist regardless to the person in charge. We can also notice that on Facebook, some people have one account for their friends and one for their business contacts. But I don’t think this would respect the spirit of what we’d like to achieve.

Of course, everything should be done ta favor interactions and have less and less “unembodied” messages, but some compromises have to be found depending on the nature of the message, the person who carry it, its “legal” force etc.. Everything is social, everything can be discussed but it seems obvious that intranet needs a special section in order to clearly identify official contents and those that, even if issued by the same person,

Bien sur il faut favoriser les échanges et l’incarnation des messages mais il y a toute une gamme de compromis à trouver en fonction de la nature du message, de son émetteur (entité officielle ou personne), de son porteur, de sa force dans la “légalité interne” etc…. Tout est social, tout est discutable…mais penser que l’intranet ne peut se passer d’une zone “officielle” afin de baliser de manière indiscutable certains contenus me semble indispensable.

Filed Under: Intranets and digital workplace, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , ,

What if organizations certified their employee’s digital ID ?

December 16, 2010 By 2 Comments

Summary : with time, many organizations fear less to see their employees speak on the web and, on the contrary, will try to turn these behaviors into a business advantage. But, then, another issue will raise : while people now understand the need to certify and protect their digital ID to prevent any person with harmful intentions to speak and act on their name, there are many chances that  enterprises will want to certify their employees digital ID when the latter are expressing themselves as employees. Two reasons to do so : more transparence in online conversations and the guarantee that no one will steal the enterprise voice by stealing employee’s.

The way organizations react to their employees speaking on the web shows both a self-protection instinct and a lot of hesitation. It’s not a surprise because that’s how anyone reacts toward a change that questions old habits and certainties. Then logically comes a more proactive attitude : since no one can prevent things from happening the only solution is to find how to make the most of it.

In an earlier post I mentioned the case of employees harming their employer’s reputation, sometimes in purpose, sometimes by mistake, by speaking on the world. But focusing on these cases makes us overlook the most positive side of the situation : lots of employee want to help and get involved.

Employee’s propensity to act this way depends on many factors : corporate culture, enterprise’s ability to motivate, make people proud of their job, personal values, local culture.. Depending on the country, the organization, the person, many behaviors are possible, from employees defending their enterprise and its products against anything, trying their best to satisfy their customers even if it’s not their job and they do it as a personal initiative, to employees who, by nature and conviction, won’t even accept to “like” their enterprise on Facebook.

Empowered is full of such examples and states one very relevant point : most of the initiatives aiming at improving customer satisfaction come from employees that do DIY to face a precise situation. These ones need support and help and not sanctions because they bring the needed reactivity and personalization layer into customer service / care that’s mandatory in today’s economy. At the last Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston we were also told how Sony was helping their employees to become brand ambassadors, speak on the web and carry their employer’s flag.

If pointing at employees criticizing their employer on the web is easy, we should not forget those who try to protect him against unwarranted attacks.

But nothing is perfect in this world and even the “best case” has its own risks. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

What’s new in the world of intranets ? The “Global Intranet Trends for 2011″ is out !

December 3, 2010 By 1 Comment

Like every year at the same period of the year, lots of practitioners are waiting for Jane McConnell’s “Global Intranet Trend” to be issued. The 2011 edition is out. Here’s what we can learn from it in a few lines :

• 5 main trends  :

- the intranet is the front door of a “workplace web”. It’s not only a communication tool that serves the enterprise but a set of work tools for employees.

- It’s becoming more collaborative (even if the road is still long…)

- It’s becoming “real time” because of social networking or microblogging tools (used by more than 20% organizations either on a global scale on in pilot phase).

- It’s becoming mobile : more and more employees can access it from outside of the office and on mobile devices.

• Growing impact of social networks

Only 20% organizations that use social media try to measure the generated value and 50% plan to do so in the future. Those that measure see improvements in information sharing, faster decisions and problem solving,  a decrease in the volume of emails, and the emergence of previously unrecognized experts.

But the road is long : 4 years are needed for a full adoption. Moreover (but is it surprising ?) senior managers are not setting an example.

• 2 challenges for 2011

- establish an appropriate governance that will deal with bot collaboration, the intranet and the “social” dimension while involving all stakeholders at the highest level since it’s a cross organization global project.

- facilitate the “social” dimension that raises new questions on communication and collaboration strategies and turn all the mobilized energies into a clear business value.

Reading the report suggest that we’ve reached a tipping point. But the gap between leaders and the others shows that there’s still a lot of work to be done.

It’s clear that the intranet is still (too much ?) seen as a communication tool and even if the vision of a workplace place is getting stronger, there’s too little maturity in value measurement. Because strategies and governance models are still unclear ?

Anyways, this survey says a lot about the state of the art and the main tends, relying on many focuses on tools, usages, change practices with a systematic comparison between leaders and followers. 90 very rich pages that sum up a research that’s been conducted with 440 organizations.

I’ll focus on some key learnings in future posts.

Meanwhile, you can download an “executive snapshot’ or buy it  here.

Enjoy your reading !

Filed Under: Intranets and digital workplace Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Is Facebook the future of call-centers ? The Air France KLM Switzerland case

November 8, 2010 By 2 Comments

Summary : Facebook is usually considered as a communication and marketing tool. But it’s becoming more and more obvious that it’s becoming a customer relationship tool what has an important impact on the design of the community management system and the role of the community manager that’s becoming the central point of a service and internal networking system. Facebook is becoming a call center and the community manager a problem solver and a connector like the Air France – KLM Switzerland case shows.

I recently found this long and interesting video in which  Alain Pezzoni from Air France KLM Switzerland talks about their social media strategy. The video is in french but here are some points I’d like to highlight from this case.

1°) Favor local initiatives

This is Air France KLM Switzerland, not Air France KLM global and this fact is important. In large international organizations, linguistic and cultoral factors make that, both at the customer and organization level, having a global strategy is very complex. Depending on the countries, what can be done and the way to do it may be radically different and building a strategy may be hard and take a lot of time. Since it’s a new field where businesses are starting from scratch, having local initiatives from which the whole organization will learn what can be reused elsewhere and what will stay local may be a good option.

Talking about Air France KLM Switzerland, it’s about 2 brands and three languages what makes 6 communities to address…and as many fan pages. So a local anchorage is essential.

2°) Communication is service

Even if, at the beginning, pages have to be filled with content to feed the fans and get their attention, the flow slowly reverses and the organization starts answering to customers’ requests. As I’ve previously mentioned, the scalabity of the model allows, as Alain Pezzoni says, to deal with call-centers overload. The social channel, even if owned by the communication department, is shared by many processus (customer service, quality…) this department does not own but facilitate. What implies to prepare things beforehand. The community manager is only the front of the system and has to work with many people from many departments across the organization and mobilize them. So he or she has to have the required legitimacy. Moreover, that’s not a job for an intern or a junior, rather a senior who knows the organization quite well. According to Pezzoni, this person must know whom to ask questions and have a strong internal network.

That’s a frequent observation. Many organizations that are good at external communitu management face, one day, the difficulty of identifying the right internal expertises. The limiting factor of external networking is often, once a critical mass and complexity is reached, the lack of internal networking.

3°) The value of transparency

Being good at customer relationship management is key for any business. But when it’s delivered through social media, the work is done “in public” what makes things visible. Being exemplary on twitter or facebook is like having a free communication campaign while serving customers.

4°) Community managers are not here to attract fans

As noticed by one of the participants, the role of the community manager is not to attract more fans or followers but improve the quality of customer relationship. I remember a good friend of mine who was asked to attract a given number of followers (number scientifically explainable regarding to the organization’s capacity in terms of delivery). He refused the job and, in my opinion, was right. In my opinion, the best way to measure a community manager is through the indicators of the processes he facilitates (quality, service, innovation), the measured image of the company but not by counting followers or fans. The numbebr of fans is the consequence of a good service, not its cause.

In fact, it’s interesting to see that the discussion that was about e-acquisition quickly moved to customer e-services.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Customer Relationship & Marketing, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Social is a substitute for quality and customers don’t care about you

September 20, 2010 By 1 Comment

Summary : Lots of things are being said about the revival of the customer relationship made possible by social media and that’s a good thing, a more human way of doing things, less mechanized, aiming a building a richer and fruitful relationship for everybody. But businesses should be careful of too easy things and smoke and mirrors. We hear lots of things about “fans”, “passionate”, “engagement”, suggesting that if a business shows as much interest to its customers as they show to the brand, a positive impression is generated, the company improves its image and sells more. But thinking that it’s all about communication and good feelings is a dead end. Most of customers are not passionate nor fans but…simple customers. In the same way, internauts who try to pick brands up on the web are not always potential customers but only people in search of recognition and favors. In short, customers expect businesses to keep their promise and use the web as a channel to remind it to them. Keeping communication and service separated, thinking that there’s no link between communication and quality programs is a big mistake. The lower quality is the more the web is stragic to gather feebacks in order to improve quality.

Bringing good feelings and more intensity in a relationship is good but should not make overlook what matters : the product, its quality and its appropriateness to the demand.


It’s mpre and more said that customers have to be considered as partners, stakeholders, and have to be involved in co-building and co-decision programs what aim at maximizing what all parts take from the relation. Customers love brands and want a strong relationship with them…and brands should give them as much love in return because their purpose is to make customers happy. So everything seems to be perfect in a world where love and respect are getting the upper hand on basely material and financial concerns.

Ok. Now let’s top kidding. Even if the final result will be the same, we should not mistake ourselves about the mechanisms at stake.

1°) Customers are a business partners that have an impressive nuisance potential…

Collaboration between customers and suppliers is nothing new? What is new is that, now, it can apply to small individual customers, not only to B2B relationships. Why did the customer become that worthy of attention ? Because he can spend more money than before ? Not at all. Only because he’s now able to shout louder that before its love or hate…and even to gather with others to make even more noise .

Is business becoming more human ? No. It’s just about a more balanced relationship. And those who can harm always deserve more consideration.

2°) Some customers are true lovers…

Some brands have real fans, people they must capitalize on. Their paradox is that they seldom expect anything in return : they never complain and ask for few interactions. A simple “thank you” is enough and they feel as is they were vested with a mission. They talk a lot around them and spread the word.

3°) But the wide majority only expects you to keep your promises [Read more...]

Filed Under: Customer Relationship & Marketing, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The death of oral exchanges in the workplace ?

September 2, 2010 By 1 Comment

Résumé :some people are more comfortable with oral exchanges, some others with written ones. Similarly, some companies have a culture that’s more “latin” than others. Before even thinking of changing the way people work we have to admit that some of the tools that have to support these new ways of working do not fit a part of the workforce and even many companys for which switching from oral to written  is vert hard. Does it mean that enterprise 2.0 is doomed to failure ? Will the upcoming evolution happen to detriment of oral culture cimpanies ? No, because tools are getting more oral themselves. But a question remains : will tools evolve before many people give up ?

Do you prefer oral or written communication ? And your enterprise ? We all have our own preferences, each company has its culture and an efficient work requires to find the right balance between staff preferences and the corporate culture.

This is not trivial at all. Imagine two people having to work together, who have a very good relationship together, if one is more “oral” and the other more “written’ it may cause many issues and misunderstandings in their everyday work. Imagine a high level executive who joins a new company, if he’s “oral” in a very formal organization or very formal in an oral culture company, things will be very difficult.

That clearly impacts the capacity any organization has to change the way it works, to embark on social media. What, seen from a different standpoint, could be turned into : “will enterprise 2.0 kill oral cultures ?”.

Traditionnally, organizations favor written things. More reliable, more “engaging” while words only engage those who hear them, easier to track and to be used as an evidence the day someone has to find what has gone wrong and why. But there are also organizations where people prefer to talk together rather than write, where the direct human contact is prefered. The Chief HR Officer of a company of this kind once used the word “latin” to describe their culture when we were discussing this kind of issue together. That’s the same for people, each have their prefered way of communicating.

The fact is that writing is the enteprise 2.0 tool’s favorite way of communicating. It’s easy to understand why. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR, Software & Tools, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Community management and processes by the example

July 12, 2010 By 2 Comments

Some weeks ago I promised to illustrate my “community management and processus” post with a fictitious but credible example. So, here it comes…

Jack and John are community managers (or, at least, in charge on figuring things out on social media on behalf of their employer). Both are working for an airline (what was a trendy and volcanic topic at the time I thought about the case). Jack is working at AirShy and Paul at AirSocial.

AirShy knows things have to be done one on Twitter, Facebook and all these new medias but is not comfortable with that. The company is used to keeping everything under control, to avoid any kind of risk. On the other hand, people at AirSocial think that if they don’t dive into the pool they have no chance to learn how to swim.

So AirShy decided to occupy the field in the only purpose to have a presence. They asked to someone who likes these new media to deal with this work : Jack. he reports to the communication department but could have reported to any department that would have taken the leadership on this subject.

At AirSocial, people wondered what these medias could be used for. Half of the answer was in que question : things are worth when they allow to serve the customer in a better way. So how could they serve their customers better with new medias ? Deliver information to eveyone, but also to people with individual concerns. That means the company should engage in conversations…about what, with what tone, to what extent ? And what should not be tackled ? Confidential issues of course ! But also what people don’t want to read in such channels. The communication department is in charge but they quickly realized that they had in their hands a pipe that can be used by anyone in the company. Even if it’s still quite vague they decided to start and learn from their own experience. John is told to deal with these media, on the operational side.

At first sight, Jack has less constraints than John. There’s no doubt he’ll achieve better results. Not that sure…

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Customer Relationship & Marketing, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

What’s the ROI of social media for an employer brand ?

May 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Last week I was invited by Weavlink to facilitate a series of workshops on the ROI of social media for employer brands. Attendees were mainly HR people with uneven maturity levels but who were deeply investigating the area. Of course it was not possible to do deep inside the issue in half an hoyr but here’s how I structured my presentation to make them think about their own model.

1°) Introduction

• It’s a concept that’s hard to get with our traditional thinking models. Do you know the “streetlight” story ? A guy is walking around a streetlight in the middle of the night. A passer-by comes and ask him what he’s looking for. “My keys”. “Wait…I’m gonna help you”. After a few minutes of unsuccessful search, he asks : “Are you sure you lost them here ?”. “Not at all but this is the only place where’s there’s enough light to search”. We need to learn to search beyond the streetlight !

• There’s no mathematical model because such systematic models don’t work for activities that are not systematic, that are about working on knowledge and information, where everything is exception and unique. We can’t equate people and interactions.

2°) What’s your goal ?

• Being on twitter, Facebook or wherever is not a goal. It it was, companies would find themselves idle in spaces where they would not know what to do because no one would know the goal that’s strived toward. They would be tossed, react insread of act and put themselves in danger. So, what matters before all is to know why they move into these media.

• Quick reminder on Norton and Kaplan’s strategy maps. Working on intangible only creates a potential that has to be used into formal activities to reach tangible goals.

• All successful social media initiatives (internal or external) share a common point : they aim at improving the delivery of a process or activity, in this case it could be recruiting, building a corporate image etc…

• Social media don’t change the nature or goals of an HR department but are one more tool they can use to fullfil their goals. Hence the need for segmentation : social tools (and each of them taken alone) has a varying importance depending on the targeted population (you won’t recruit you CEO on Facebook or a Yer with an ad in the NYT)

• That’s not because no mathematical formula exists that what is done can’t be measured as well as the impact on the efficiency of a given processus.

• 3 challenges for the employer brand : sourcing, image, engagement.

• Then, what matters is not to wonder what are the impact of social media toward these challenges but how to use and include them in strategies that aims at addressing these challenges.

• If any improvement can me measured in the way any action plan is executed in termes of speed, quality, scalability or cost, then we have answers to the ROI question.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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