How Social Media Affects the Organization Itself: Post Roundup

What are we learning as we watch (and help) social media, consumer-outreach -style tools, make their way into the organization?  We’re learning that this phenomenon can be understood from a wide range of disparate perspectives, which don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye. At least not yet.  Still,

I’m anticipating a convergence among perspectives that will create a coherent explanation of what social media and systems of engagement can do inside organizations.

And, I’m expecting that we’ll soon be able to craft a compelling argument for being deliberate as we implement these systems, to see beyond what they do on the surface and focus instead on how they can create net positive value for members, organizations, stakeholders and communities.

Ahead, I’m expecting that the perspectives from inward-facing information management systems like:

• IT & digital systems design
• Content management,
• Work process flow
• Enterprise resource planning

Will overlap with perspectives from outward-facing interaction systems like:

• Customer relationship management
• Corporate communications
• Brand (product) management
• Customer service
• Recruiting, and

Will be enhanced by understanding what it takes to get people to involved and move them to action, drawing on insights from:

• Social entrepreneurship
• Cause marketing
• Social change

Add to these the conventional, managerialist approach of Social Business, the network & power approach of Wirearchy, and insights from the organizational change area (e.g., organizational democracy, employee engagement, and stakeholder value conversations) and you’ll see how the groundwork is being laid to use digital social tools and analog social systems to reorganize *inside* the organization.

I’m discovering colleagues, distributed across these areas, who are excited about the opportunities that social media and systems of engagement  present for social change.  And,  I’m starting to get a handle on who’s contributing what to this convergence.

As part of my effort to sketch the big picture:

Here are posts on Authentic Organizations that are working to build connections across these areas, one link at a time.

All of these systems — social media and systems of engagement — share some important value assumptions.

• Systems of Engagement: Technology for Social Organizations
• Networks and the Myth that Flatter Organizations are Better
• Networks and The Myth of Flattening Organizations

Social media & systems of engagement can be used to transform organizations- intentionally as well as unintentionally.

• Social Media for Social Change — Inside the Organization?
• When Will “Social Business” Become Social Change Business?

Social media/engagement systems create meaning and value at the individual, organizational and stakeholder system level. This meanin, and the activity that creates it work to build engagement.

• How Social Media Create Organizational Meaning
• Active Lurkers: How Idea Lovecats Demonstrate Engagement
• Authentic Student Entrepreneurs: Embedding Personal, Product and Organizational Brand
• What’s your *personal* ROI as a Brandividual?
• Insights about Authenticity from the Open Community Book Tour
• Jews and Social Media: Aligned values reinforce an Authentic strategy

Systems allow us to create & shape who we are and how we are seen, As individuals

• Your Authentic Social Network: The Identity Graph
• Be Your Own Hashtag
• Tweet Yourself Like the Person You Want to Be
• How Social Media Reveals Invisible Work

and as organizations.

• 7 Tips for Rendering Authenticity Through Social Media
• The Best PR that $1.6 Million Can’t Buy: Authenticity in Action at Zappos
• Logos, Browsers, Brand Identity, and What You Value
• Beyond an Online Dress Code: A ‘Look Code’ for Work Avatars & Employee Branding
• Representing your organization on Twitter: A Logo or a Face?

Systems allow us and others to evaluate our behavior. Who makes these evaluations, who uses them, and what priorities they reflect all matter.

• Action Branding: Using activity streams to authenticate identity claims
• Authenticity: Is there an app for that?

If your organization does or does not reflect its espoused values and character in its social media systems and outputs, stakeholders will figure it out and ask you to do better.

• 3 Reasons Why Employee Engagement is a Scam
• 7 Core Principles for Authentic Engagement
• When Brandividuals Violate Organizational Reputation
• Social Media Risks: Restoring trust when your brand mascot is a killer (whale)

The assumptions and decisions that designers – and managers- make about these systems matter more than most people think.

• Authentic Organizations communicate in their own special way(s)
• Facebook for Women vs. Facebook Designed by Feminists: Different vs. Revolutionary
• If Women Had Designed Facebook

Designers have more power than users, so you should be deliberate about the designs you create, choose and implement.

• Use Extreme Leverage 2.0 to Change The Social World
• Why Women DON’T Rule the Internet

We can be proactive in how we use these tools, so that we create the kinds of jobs and organizations that inspire us. For example,

• Work-Life Initiatives Are the Foundation of Authentic Organizations
• Social Media, False Urgency & Anywhen: Chris Brogan shows how to improve your Work-Life Fit
• Work-Life Fit is an Enterprise 2.0 Solution

It’s usually easy to use a social media/engagement system, but it’s hard to do it well.

• Misleading Image for Army: New York Times, PowerPoint and Complexity Fail
• Are Online Surveys Making Us Stupid?

Where to next?

As I look at the summary statements I’ve offered for each cluster of posts, the connections and conclusions seem more straightforward than they are “in real life”. As always, the beauty is in the details, and the power is in the implementation.

Image: “The Road Ahead” by colorbee, available as a print on Etsy!

Tagged as: authentic social media, community management, employee engagement, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise microblogging, organization 2.0, Organizational Change, reputation, Social Business, social media, social organizations, systems of engagement