E-reputation | Bertrand Duperrin's Notepad

What if organizations certified their employee’s digital ID ?

December 16, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 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: Communication, digital-ID, e-reputation, Empowered, identity, myid.is, service, usurpation

Corporate e-reputation is the visible part of an impressive iceberg

October 28, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : enterprises fear, and sometimes with good reasons, the impact on their reputation of what their employees could write on the web. But this fear is sometimes so disproportinate that it leads to ludicrous situations. New balances have to be found in this domain, but that’s not all. The image of the organization, its business behaviors, ethics, also impact employee’s pride, motivation, engagement…and their propensity for harming their employer. Even worse : beyond the visible part that is made of one’s image and reputation, the same causes impact deeper mechanisms that drives quality, performance and the sustainability of business.

Lots of businesses are careful about the impact of their employees’ behaviors on their reputation. Should something negative appear somewhere on the web and an impressive self-defense system is activated. Employees have already been sharing their opinion about their employer with family and friends for ages and there’s nothing new here. The point is that, now, they can share with so many people that the situation has become critical from a corporate point of view.

In some cases we have to admit that employees are going to far beyond what the law and his employment contract allow. Of course we can discuss the right for privacy but there are things one can’t say publicly…even not at all. Not because the organization is over-sensitive but because law says so. That’s as simple as that and apply to the web as well as to any situation in real life.

But, not being comfortable with this new and unavoidable transparency, businesses are sometimes over sensitive and react to anything that’s said about them, regardless to the subject and context. This may make us wonder about to what extent employees belong their employer and what is the limit to having and sharing an opinion. The following video may look caricatured but it raises actual questions that are not that far from reality.

Would businesses want it or not, employees can impact their reputation but not as much as they may think. Once the moment of panic that comes with the emergence of a new phenomenon has ended, they’ll have to accept what’s unavoidable, learn to know what deserves a sanction and not, what is like using a bozooka to kill a fly and what deserves no reaction. After all the absence of criticism is suspicious and transparency can, to some extent, made the organization more human with its qualities and defaults.

A more human organization…that’s the point…

E-reputation needs ethics

April 12, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Facing the incrreasing importance of social medias, enterprises have to manage their reputation fields and on a scale that are really new to them. They can either do it by themselves or hire external professionals who’ll put use knowledge and expertise of this new market to help businesses. There’s nothing really ne here.

But some promises are made to novice enterprises often leave me doubtful.

• “Eliminate negative contents”

I’d like to know how such a miracle can be made. Of course, if any content is defamatory and is a clear attempt to harm a company’s reputation, it’s a legal issue and the old good recipes may apply. But what to do with it’s an argued publication, relying on tangible facts ? Discuss, explain, negociate ? Why not, and it may work. But there is no way to promise the content will be deleted when it’s not reprehensible on a legal point of view. Maybe some think of threats and pressure, what is the best means to get the opposite of what’s expected and is the evidence of a lack of ethics if such means are used without telling the enterprise how the promised results would be pursued.

• “Generation of positive contents”

If negative contents can’t be eliminated, diluting them in an ocean of positive contents may be a good option. So, why not, provided things remain objective. But the danger of attempting to distort the reality is actual. I recently heard an employer brand director saying that businesses have to be cautious and not oversell there message if they want to avoid viloent backfires. But what to do if a clients asks his service provider to insolently lie ? Tell him that he should use criticizes to improve his product, that if their client or their company sucks, social media won’t fix it ? Or say “Sir yes Sir !” ? I know many people that can have the first discourse but I’m also worried that many may choose the second.

Let’s be clear : disguising reality to show the best possible image does not bother me at all : that’s call advertisement. On the other hand, when these methods are applied to things such as reputation, where trust and transparency matter, that’s nothing but theft. Any professional who forgets to explain that to its clients commits a professional fault, nothing ing less.

Anyway, when advertisement and reputation are confused and the methods of the first applied to the second, the price is often high for the customer. Businesses have to do both but should also avoid confusion.

Communication, e-réputation, marque, marque-employeur, medias sociaux, publicité

Filed Under: Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: advertisement, brand, Communication, e-reputation, employer brand, social media

Networking and collaboration : is enterprise a land of trust or distrust ?

February 11, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

I recently wrote that it what obvious to me that for many people some activities and behaviors had to remain in their private sphere and, that social networking and everything that comes with is not a part of what they naturally want to transpose in the workplace. I also temperated my words saying that, of course, generation and local culture factors had to be taken into account. But, according to the last discussions I had with people from all around the world, the gap between some european countries and the anglo-saxon world is more than a supposition.

Luck made me come across a Microsoft survey[fr] since then. What does it say ?

The survey shows that the French are attached to preserving a clear boundary between their personal and professionallives : with 86% respondants, French are,by far those who want to differenciate their online profile from their professional one. 61% do it systematically.

The whole survey is available here en english.

The survey also tells us, what may seem paradoxical, that the French are those who think the less than their online activities will affect their professional lives. Why ?

France is the outlier. French respondents reported being less concerned than other groups, and study findings suggest two key reasons for this. First, the data suggests that the French do not rely as heavily on online information to make either social or professional judgments about others. Second, data shows that the French are considerably more proactive in monitoring and managing their reputations and have, therefore, less to be concerned about.

In short, we care so much about the informations that may exist about us that we are sure (and maybe we’re wrong) that nothing that is left online can be harmful to us.

Two obvious conclusions have to be made ad this point :

• Strict separation bewteen personal and professional lives. Question : does it only concern informations or the related behaviors too ?

• We do our possible that the informations that can be found online about us would not help anyone to judge us. Question : do we transpose this behavior in the workplace ?

From Social Media to Social CRM : a recent experience with airlines

January 11, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 13 Comments

I already wrote many posts about social CRM on this blog and I recently had the (unfortunate ?) opportunity to add a real life experience to my thoughts. Those who’d prefer to pass over the narative of a long story may directly go to the bottom of the page to read the conclusion.

The situation

A simple holidays week. The discovering of an airline I never took before and, on my trip back home, the experience of very bad weather conditions that made thousands of people strand in many airports.

The background

I have many topics of interest outside of enterprise 2.0. Among them are travels, airlines industry and planes. I’m following and reading some specialized blogs and twitter accounts (airlines, professionals..) as well as some people who share these passions. Some of my “friends” and “followers” are also frequent travelers, ranked “Elite +” by their favorite airline and, like me, they consider that it’s more than a means of transportaion : it’s a true passion. Discussing with these people has a real added value when I need a piece a advice about an airline, a place to go, an aircraft, an airport… better ask it to people who fly more than 60 000 miles every year. Mind you, this is also true for many other fields…but I’ll discuss that later in this post.

Of course I follow the twitter account of my “usual and favorite airline”. They use twitter to broadcast more or less the same things that can also be found on their site or their newsletter, mainly advertisement about promotions. No discussions nor “retweets” of any message coming from a third party (clients or other professionals). The account is not very active and is mainly a one-way channel, with a very weak community side.

For instance, when the “community” live tweeted the delivery of their first Airbus A380 that was broadcasted in video on the web (btw that was a great idea…) and asked some questions to the airline about the plane or wanted to know if the videos would be available for reuse on blogs…no answer, no interest. No more sign of life when I took the time to bring my personal blog back to life (I rarely have time to blog on it) to share the experience of my first flight on their A380. A position that is, a priori, neither bad or good and must be the consequence of a well-though-out strategy.

So, this is the state of my social media experience with “my” airline. Quite frustrating when you’re both an “Elite” and passionate passenger, but the community is large enough so I can share this passion even without the airline. Of course there are many opposite examples (no need to mention Southwest…), but I’m only considering my own personal experience.

Is digital identity only for experienced people ?

April 23, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago I attended an event called YouOnTheWeb which purpose was to make people aware of digital identity, e-reputation and personal branding. A competiton was organized to reward students who are managing well their personal brand what means, on an employer’s side, that their abiliy to be relevant on a specific topic can be felt through their web presence.

Partner companies submitted subjects, in order the jury could assess students according to real employer issues. I was member of a jury in charge of assessing student’s relevance to cross-generation knowledge transfer and community management issues.

Before going further, I have repeat the context and the assumptions : we were suppose to face the first “representatives” of an hyper-connected generation, which shares everything online and naturally interacts a lot within networks.

Now let’s see the result.

[Read more...]