It’s an inside job

I love Michael Idinopulos’ blog today on Socialtext Blog.  I have blogged on the “inside job” before and collaboration is just that– an inside job.  Michael says his mom always said “it’s what’s on the inside that counts”.  That is so true with collaboration.  If you are not a collaborative person on the inside all the blogs, wikis, communities and tweets will not make you one.  A company’s culture and people have to have that shift.  They need to want t0 move out of the silos.  Otherwise blogs, wikis and communities just become yet another silo of information that is hidden and out of plain view.   And Michael’s other point was great as well– external efforts are only another marketing channel and not truly collaborative unless that information finds its way inside to the corporation.  It is hard to open yourself up to transparency, negative comments and mistakes.  BUT as Michael Jordan has often said “failure is his secret.”  Mistakes and failures are the  way we learn.  When corporations rise above the fear, open themselves up (truly) and share the highs as well as the lows, collaboration starts to happen.  My ideas can only become better when you build on them.  BUT you can only build on them if I let you in…  what’s on the inside counts.  Michael and his mom are right!

Marketing Social Media Inside

One of the questions I get frequently is “how do we get the users to see that using Social Media inside our corporation is a benefit?”  There are many tactics, but one I use is in a way like writing a commercial.  Before you have your own inhouse testimonies, you need to create some. 

I like to write scenerios for different business units using a probable situation that collaborating with the tools will

1. save time
2. save money
3. result in a solution better than ever imagined

They are not difficult to come up with if you have done your analysis right.  Take the challenges that a user has, their suggestions that would improve the situation and incorporate them into a scenerio.  Post these, display them and run an “inhouse marketing” campaign using these as one of the pieces.  When you plan your implementation, if you have done it well, you have the communications/marketing piece included and this can be a component of that.  Once the momentum is going, you will have “real” testimonies from the users themselves.  At that point, incorporate those and ask if you can use their name and department so it becomes a personal, grassroots testimonial/evangalism program for your newly found collaborative solutions!  Happy Collaborating.