The media storm surrounding Jezebel’s claim that The Daily Show is sexist has tangled up our common assumptions about what does or does not make an organization sexist.

Whether or not an organization is “sexist”–or for that matter racist, classist, sustainable, Mormon, Black, etc. – matters to the organization’s members and to its audience.

Our judgments of sexism influence how we respond to an organization, shape how the organization’s members feel about themselves and their participation in the organization, and can damage the organization’s overall viability. And, our judgments affect an organization’s reputation and goodwill among the audience, reducing the organization’s social standing and influence.

It seems like everybody wants to have a say, in the decision over The Daily Show’s sexism.

First Jezebel’s Irin Carmon, then media critics, then well-regarded feminists, and finally the women of The Daily Show themselves have joined the conversation. Folks are tossing around one judgment here and another judgment there, using ill-defined criteria often rather carelessly. So how can we know?

How can we evaluate whether The Daily Show, or any other organization, is sexist or not?

One strategy is to use the handy Six Degrees of Sexism test!

6 Degrees of Sexism Test

The 6 Degrees of Sexism Test applies several criteria, including:

1. The leader’s behavior
2. The organization’s demographic composition
3. The experiences of people within the organization
4. The organization’s practices & systems
5. The organization’s product, and
6. The organization’s social impact

Individually, some of these criteria are more definitive than others. Some criteria are more ambiguous, and still other criteria are inconclusive at best and misleading at worst. Because judgments of sexism can have serious consequences and because few individual criteria offer enough “proof”, we usually look for more than one indicator of sexism.

The Daily Show has been accused of being sexist because..

• Jon Stewart (the leader) is sexist
• The organization’s demographic composition suggests that it discriminates against women,
• Some people have claimed that their negative experiences within the organization were due to gender-based discrimination, and
• The organization’s product appears to be sexist (e.g., the on air personalities and interview subjects are disproportionately male).

- Interestingly, afaik, there haven’t been explanations of actual systems at The Daily Show that are sexist. Instead, people have focused on the outcomes of these practices (e.g., employee demographics, product qualities) to infer that the systems are sexist. And,

- There have been few critiques that have used The Daily Show’s social influence to demonstrate that it is sexist.

We can consider each criterion in turn, and evaluate for ourselves whether we think that The Daily Show is, in our judgment, sexist.

1. Is The Daily Show sexist because the leader (Jon Stewart) is sexist?

People like to use the behavior of the top management as an indicator of the organization’s overall character because we believe that leaders “set the tone” of the organization, and imbue the organization with their own values.

While this is often true, it is also true that leaders don’t always represent personally what the organization collectively stands for. As a criterion for judging the sexism of the organization itself, the leader’s behavior can be compelling data but is insufficient. Whether or not you think Jon Stewart is a sexist *&#^k, that’s just not enough data. You have to know whether or not his attitude sets the tone and shapes the organizational practices of The Daily Show.

2. Is The Daily Show sexist because the majority of the organization’s employees are male?

Using this criterion to judge sexism relies on two assumptions. First, you have to assume that an organization is the sum of its parts. Second, you have to believe that these objective characteristics predict relevant values and behaviors. If you have an organization of disproportionately tall employees, is it a “tall” organization? And, do these tall employees behave in “tall” ways?

If the employees are largely men, then the organization is sexist (so the logic goes). But, you also have to assume that being male means that someone is likely to behave in ways that are sexist.

With regard to The Daily Show, if the demographic content of the organization is 40% women and 60% men, you might compare that to the 51/49% distribution of men and women in the total population and conclude that The Daily Show more or less hires a proportional amount of men and women. But here’s the kicker—if all of those people (men and women) behave in sexist ways, does it matter whether some of them are women? Nope, you can have a sexist organization that is predominately female. And, you can have a non-sexist / anti-sexist organization of all men.

The demographic composition of the organization does not by itself demonstrate that an organization is sexist.

3. Is The Daily Show sexist because employees experience the organization as sexist?

This is another tough one. Arguably, if “the organization” is sexist and discriminates against employees along gendered and racialized lines, employees will experience this sexism.

If employees report that they don’t feel discriminated against and they don’t feel that their work environment is sexist, we often conclude that the organization is not sexist. This is one argument that the women of The Daily Show have made in defense of their organization. Individually and collectively, they explain, they have not experienced The Daily Show (or Jon Stewart) as sexist. On the other hand, the two female ex-employees of The Daily Show who were interviewed by Jezebel claimed that the harsh treatment at TDS was due to their gender. However, gender doesn’t explain the similar harsh treatment that former male employees have reported.

Before we take anyone’s word for it, we have to consider how well-equipped these employees are to recognize their experience as sexism or not. It can seem harsh to question the reports of the employees – surely, they know what they experienced. But do they know what sexism is and how to distinguish between a bad experience and a bad experience that is due to sexist behavior, attitudes, and systems? And, do the women and men experience and notice  efforts to reduce sexist experiences within the organization?

4. Are The Daily Show’s practices & work systems sexist in their application? And, are they sexist in their outcomes?

This is the most critical criterion, and in my mind the only one that, alone, could provide enough data for a conclusive judgment. But it’s still very complicated.

Organizational systems can be designed to be sexist in their intent (e.g., only women are allowed to be makeup artists) and they can be design to let sexism slip through unchallenged. These days, intentionally sexist systems are harder to find. Instead, it’s the systems that fail to challenge sexism that indicate whether an organization is sexist.

The Daily Show has some hiring processes that aim to prevent sexism. The Daily Show evaluates the writing samples of applicants using a “blind” process: applicant’s names and identifying information are removed from the submissions before they are evaluated. (Compare this to the practice at American Apparel, where potential employees have to submit photos of themselves with their job applications to prove that they are sexistly sexy enough.)

On the other hand, the concentration of men in higher status, “line” positions (e.g., writers, on air personalities) and the concentration of women in administrative, managerial, and support positions could be taken to suggest that The Daily Show’s systems let sexism through.

Then again, The Daily Show has been appreciated for family/life-friendly flexibility by both women and men.

In one of the more ‘organizational’ analyses of the issue so far, Amanda Hess writes:

If you haven’t considered the societal forces and ingrained prejudices that may contribute to gender disparities in your hiring practices, your hiring practices are probably sexist.

5. Is The Daily Show’s product sexist?

s the show that The Daily Show creates sexist? Does it prefer men over women, focus on male defined topics to the exclusion of female defined topics, and/or promote, display or leave unchallenged sexist attitudes?

Again, another tricky evaluation. Both the male-to-female ratio of guests on the show, and the male-to-female ratio of on-camera personalities heavily favor men. Defenders of The Daily Show rely on the pipeline argument, explaining that the pool of female comedians is relatively low. A similar argument is made to explain the dominance of male authors, actors, and national figures who come on the show to be interviewed.

And how about the content of what The Daily Show covers? I have yet to see a content analysis of TDS’s coverage, but my sense is that, while they don’t cover as many issues on the top of feminists’ lists as I might like, they do cover issues that women as well as men care about (e.g., gay rights).

Finally, consider the last criterion:

6. What kind of impact is The Daily Show having on the segments of society that it influences? Is that impact sexist?

Progressive that I am, I’d have to argue that the impact of The Daily Show is a –qualified– win for women and anti-sexist men, although the link between their product and the quality of their social influence is a long one.

As much as it tries to be an ‘equal opportunity offender’ and skewer the Left as well as the Right, The Daily Show serves a progressive agenda. By calling attention to and making fun of regressive, racist, sexist, denialist, anti-scientific and plain’ole old ineffective politics and social trends, The Daily Show’s influence rebuts the forces that support sexism.

To be sure, whether or not an organization is sexist is a complex call—There are arguments for and against The Daily Show’s sexism, on every criterion. And, as much as we’d like to “pinpoint” our conclusion on one obvious example or another, it’s the whole picture of the organization, a picture created by considering all 6 dimensions, that ultimately informs our judgment of whether or not the organization is sexist.

I’ve had an occasional window into The Daily Show from family and friends who have worked there. I’ve heard an array of examples that lead me to conclude that The Daily Show as an organization is less sexist and trying harder than most media producing organizations. I would like to see them do more to address sexism with their product (e.g., more women on air, more women interviewees, more rigorous questions for women interviewees) and within their organization (e.g., take an explicitly anti-sexist stand and create systems that would support this).

That said, when I give use the 6 Degrees of Sexism Test on The Daily Show, it squeaks by with a ‘pass’.

And you? If you’re a Daily Show viewer, what’s your judgment? Do you think The Daily Show is sexist, or not?

Notes:  If you aren’t sure what “sexism” or “sexist behavior” is, please check out Feminism 101.
No mansplaining, please.

See also:
Will Newsweek Respond to Claims of Sexism?
What Makes an Organization Authentically “Mormon”?

Images: www.thedailyshow-q.mtvi.com/…/Kristen+Schaal , Comedy Central

If you’ve been paying attention to BP’s “Making it right” newspaper advertising, or if you’ve seen BP’s recent television advertising, you’ve seen BP’s new Brandividual Darryl Willis.

Aside from Tony Hayward, BP’s walking PR disaster CEO, Darryl Willis is the only person with a name shown by BPs own advertisements as being in charge of anything related to the Gulf Oil Spill. And, Darryl Willis is now the point person for a lot of anger, frustration and resentment over BP’s behavior.  Why would anyone put himself in the position of speaking personally for an organization with such an actively damaged reputation?

Darryl Willis, BP Claims Spokesperson

Darryl Willis is featured in this television spot, where he speaks in the first person. Mostly, he speaks of “we”, as he explains BP’s position regarding fulfilling Gulf Residents’ claims against BP. And he closes by taking a person stand, saying :

“I was born and raised in Louisiana. I volunteered for this assignment because this is my home. I’ll be here in the Gulf as long as it takes to make this right.”

In taking on this role as BP’s spokesperson and using his face, name and personal history to represent BP, Willis is BP’s “Brandividual”.

A Brandividual is an employee who draws on her or his personal identity as well as the organization or brand’s identity, to represent the organization or brand to the public.

When brandividuals speak on the organization’s behalf, they intentionally and deliberately express their own personalities, personal attributes and personal attitudes as they represent the organization. This allows the audience to take the brandividual’s characteristics, along the emotions these characteristics trigger, and associate them with the organization.

Brandividuals loan or rent their own personal brands to serve the corporate brand. Thus, when a well-known and well-liked MarComms person like Scott Monty represents Ford, the positive elements of Monty’s personal reputation are transferred to Ford. When we like Scott Monty, we are more included to like Ford.

A brandividual puts his personal reputation on the line… for the business’s benefit.

Most often we see individuals using their personal brands to grow an organization’s business. Someone comes on board with his or her reputation already made and uses that to grow the business of the organization they’ve joined. Less frequently, brandividuals join organizations to buttress the organization’s damage control efforts with the power of their own person reputations. These sorts of brandividual relationships are less common, simply because they are so costly to the individual’s reputation. After all, why would someone become a corporate brandividual when the corporation’s reputation has already tanked?

That’s why the newspaper ad featuring Darryl Willis got me thinking: What’s in it for him?

In the ad, Willis is presented as saying “I volunteered for this position.” But why would anyone put his own personal reputation on the firing line in such an profoundly negative situation?

Surely, being publicly associated with BP right now has to be a losing proposition for anyone’s personal brand.

Why a person would NOT want to be BP’s brandividual

Being personally associated with an organization involved in a scandal, crisis or crime has many negative repercussions for rank and file members.

Just ask the Employees of Satyam, or Goldman Sachs. Or, Exxon.

The negative implications of association are exacerbated for brandividuals, because their roles as spokesperson make them constant representatives of the organization. They have no other work that takes priority over representing the organization, and no other roles in which to invest their self-concepts.

Further, the brandividual role as a constant, public-facing representative puts them in regular contact with stakeholders who now dislike and distrust the organization. The brandividual now has to manage his or her personal response to being the target of angry stakeholders’ criticism.

Being the Brandividual for an organization with an actively damaged reputation can lead to:

• Long term, even permanent stain on personal reputation

The longer and more prominently the individual plays the role of brandividual, the stronger the public’s association of the person with the organization. The negative association will be hard to escape, and hard to change.

• Emotional burnout from wearing a falsely- positive mask

Whether or not the brandividual believes that the organization is responsible, trustworthy or blameless, s/he has to present the organization this way to others. The burden of acting positively while hiding or suppressing even small bits of ones own negative evaluation of the organization takes an emotional toll.

• Psychological exposure and threats to self-esteem

When brandividuals meet stakeholders face to face, they may be treated with scorn and derision as stakeholders make the brandividual the target of their anger. It’s hard for the individual to avoid internalizing the negative reactions they experience from angry stakeholders and start to see themselves in a negative light.

• Threats to personal self-efficacy

Being a brandividual puts you in a place where you can represent the organization, but it doesn’t necessarily put the individual in a place where s/he can resolve the problem. Imagine having to apologize over and over again, and make promises over and over again, when you can’t control whether these promises will be fulfilled?

A damaged personal reputation, emotional burnout, threatened self-esteem, and a diminished sense of personal power don’t seem like much of a reward for taking on the brandividual role for BP.

Why might someone (like Darryl Willis) take on BP’s Brandividual role in spite of these potential costs?

• Strong identification with company?

The brandividual may have so much of himself invested in the organizaiton that he doesn’t distinguish personal harm/benefit from the organization’s harm/benefit. He may think that, by serving as the person who apologizes, he’s actually getting the organization to apologize.

• Self-esteem of steel?

The brandividual may simply be superhuman, able to withstand the emotional and psychological toll of this negative role. Or, through a related psychological mechanism, the brandividual may not care that much about his personal reputation among this particular (in this case, national) audience. He may have compartmentalized his reputations, and may be able to protect the more important personal reputation.

• Career Opportunity?

The brandividual may make a deal with the devil, and take on this role as a way to advance his career.

Nothing says “company man” like taking the flack for the organization’s criminality.

• Chance to make a difference?

The brandividual may sincerely think that taking this role may give him the opportunity to make some kind of personal difference, some personal resolution to the crisis. The brandividuyal may think that s/he can invest the role with something special, something personal, that will shift the situation so that harm is reduced and some good is created.

What’s motivating BP’s Brandividual?

The optimist in me hopes that Willis has taken on this role because he sincerely believes he has a “chance to make a difference”.

Perhaps he thinks that, being on the side of paying out claims, he can be associated with the good feelings of helping Gulf residents in some small way. Maybe he can help with his human touch, with the connections between himself, his family, and the Gulf community.

Then again, maybe he’s just a kinder, gentler face attempting to shield us from the horror of BP’s Gulf Oil Spill.

See Also:

What’s a Brandividual?
What’s your personal ROI as a Brandividual?
Employee Branding in Reverse: Satyam Scandal turns employees into Untouchables?

Jane E. Dutton, Janet M. Dukerich and Celia V. Harquail, 1994. Organizational Images and Member Identification, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 239-263.

Gotta love those folks at Zappos. They screw up, they explain, they apologize, and they fix it.

And we applaud.

Why? Because Zappos’ actions support the company’s stated purpose, and Zappos’ actions support its claims about who they are as a company. It’s Authenticity in Action.

The Zappos’ Mistake Story in a Nutshell

An online pricing error at 6pm.com ( Zappos.com’s outlet & clearance site) puts everything on the site, even Manolos, at $49.99 or less. The glitch goes unnoticed from midnight to 6am, when it is finally corrected. Despite the potential lost revenue,

Zappos decides not to take the official line in its own boilerplate in their Terms of Use:

(“In the event a product is listed at an incorrect price … due to error … we shall have the right to refuse or cancel any orders placed for product listed at the incorrect price.”)

Instead, Zappos gives its customers the benefit of the incorrect, lower price.

Aaron Magness, director of brand marketing at Zappos, wrote on their blog:

While we’re sure this was a great deal for customers, it was inadvertent, and we took a big loss (over $1.6 million – ouch) selling so many items so far under cost. However, it was our mistake. We will be honoring all purchases that took place on 6pm.com during our mess up.

In a postscript to that blog post, CEO Tony Hsieh:

- Explains the details that lead to the error,
- Admits that they were planning a system upgrade but hadn’t gotten there yet,
- Promises that the system was being fixed, and
- Assures us that no one involved was fired.

Zappos did some problem analysis, they identified the systemic issue, leaders took responsibility, and the problem was not blamed on the poor folks who made the coding error. That’s learning from mistakes, and that’s leadership.  And, for Zappos, it’s authentic behavior.

Authentic Actions Demonstrate Core Values

Their response to the pricing error is authentic behavior, because of how Zappos’ response demonstrates their commitment to their core values.

Specifically, the actions demonstrated value #7: Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication.

“It’s important to always act with integrity in your relationships, to be compassionate, friendly, loyal, and to make sure that you do the right thing and treat your relationships well.”

Also, Zappos’ actions demonstrate another core value, value #1: Deliver WOW Through Service.

Nothing says ‘wow’ like honoring the mistaken price, even when you aren’t required to. Loyal Zappos’ customers may have gotten used to the occasional free overnight delivery, so that ‘wow’ might be tired. However, to have a business accept responsibility for its errors in a way that benefits the customer? That’s still rare, and remarkable.

Even Authentic Actions are Vulnerable

Some people did question the lag time between the discovery of the error, the posting of the explanation, the subsequent followup by the CEO, and Hsieh’s tweeting about the situation. Could the lagged tweeting and information sharing about the event have been intentional, to help Zappos take advantage of the mistake by generating (even) more positive press all the way into this week?

Certainly, the “free” publicity about the $1.6 million dollar mistake has generated some buzz for Zappos. It has also increased people’s awareness of the 6pm.com site/business itself — and so the whole situation can be seen as a $1.6 million dollar ad spend.

Maybe that’s cynical, and maybe there’s some truth to it. Maybe it’s both.

Authentic behaviors are vulnerable to second-guessing by observers.

Observers never really know whether actions have occurred for the reasons that organizations claim, or whether these reasons are just post hoc spin. With authentic behaviors (like altruistic behaviors), it’s not hard to find a more base, less noble, instrumental explanation for these actions.

Authentic behaviors operate at two levels– they express real commitments, and they also generate positive reactions from others, because people recognize these authentic  actions as the ‘right thing to do’.  The positive reaction is nice, but it’s not the reason for the action itself.

Would it have been somehow more ‘authentic’ if Zappos had not been public about their mistake and their response?

The estimable Seth Godin, in response to a comment in Jeff Jarvis’s post on Buzz Machine, pointed out that keeping the mistake secret, quietly honoring the prices and working to ensure that word didn’t get out would not have demonstrated Zappos’ commitment to transparency. It would have been inauthentic behavior. Thus, Godin asks, “Why exactly is it wrong for Tony to tweet this, whenever he tweets it?”

Responding to Mistakes, Organizations Demonstrate Their Character

I’m sure that some wise person stated, in a pithy way, that the ways we respond to mistakes demonstrates our real character. This is true for individuals, and for organizations.

Laurel Papworth notes that Zappos’ error — and response — is the kind of mistake that ends up being great for a company’s reputation. In social media “mistakes often make, more than break, a company’s reputation.”

Social Media and Reputation

Social media is important for reputation not just because social media make a mistake more public, but because they make the resolution of that mistake public. Social media allow us to see both the breach and the resolution. Not to mention, social media allow use to see everyone  else’s opinion about the quality of the resolution, amplifying and supporting our own conclusions.

By itself, this particular action by Zappos doesn’t prove that Zappos is an authentic organization. Instead, it’s Zappos’ pattern of actions, over and over, that create an ongoing experience of Zappos as an organization striving to demonstrate its values through its actions.

That’s the kind of authenticity that no amount  of money can buy.

See Also:

(from back before I liked Zappos: If Stephen Colbert were the CEO of Zappos: Explaining a layoff to your employees

Hat tip to @TechDirt for the story.

I’m not sure whether Naomi, Linda, Tatiana, Christy, or Cindy are really on Twitter, but if they are, their strategy probably involves one of five “supermodels” of Twitter participation.

[Yes, that's what we call a bait 'n switch, but since you're more interested in Twitter than in Supermodels, you don't really mind, right?]

If you know anything about supermodels — and let’s face it, you probably do — you know that everybody from Andre Leon Talley to Cindy Leive to Mark Morris has his or her own idea of what constitutes a ’supermodel’.

In the real world, it actually doesn’t matter what criteria you use, as long as you get the right types for your own personal catwalk.

The same is true on Twitter. Just like everybody has his or her pantheon of “Supermodels” (Claudia, in or out?), folks have different ways of parsing the roles people create for themselves on Twitter. You can choose from among these typologies the roles that work for you.

(“But don’t Social Media and Fashion clash?” you ask. Only for those who lack a sense of adventure. I am going to “make it work”. Tim Gunn told me to.)

Here are my personal favorite 5 Supermodels of Twitter.

These five models organize what’s fashionable, and show you how to work it.

1. Tamsen McMahon at ‘Round the Square shows how Trust Agents can rock twitter.

Chris Brogan and Julian Smith defined Trust Agents, and McMahon sorted Trust Agents into 5 different models explaining how Trust Agents add value. It turns out that, with Tamsen’s models, Trust Agents translate to Twitter much better than fashion models translate into actors.  The 5 models include:

• The creator. The person who creates new ideas. The generator.
  
  
• The connector. The person who connects ideas, and /or people, together.
  
  
• The filter. The person who analyzes and prioritizes ideas for redistribution. Their value comes in their ability to pick out the “good stuff.”
  
  
• The interpreter. The person who translates ideas between groups, including from current groups to ones that don’t yet exist. The teacher.
  
  
• The collector: The person who aggregates information, sorts it for reference of the others, and often help provide backup (in the form of data) for others’ work. These are librarians, of sorts, whose value comes in their ability to provide both comprehensive and easy-to-use high-quality information.
  
  

2. Deirdre Breakenridge organizes her Twitter models into a “relationship stairway”,

considering not the content activity of her Tweeple but rather the level of engagement and relationship she’s creating with them.

• The Casual Friend: “Casual conversations can also equate to bigger opportunities including interviews, great blog posts and overall really good information that could only come from a simple “Good Morning” on Twitter.”

• The Taker with Good Info: “Takers” can be good Tweeple. ” Casual friends often turn into those who begin to share information with me, in hope that I will discuss it further with my community.”

• The Giver: “The Giver is a special friend. This person doesn’t ask anything of you, they simply find you interesting and naturally want to share your information with their friends…Meaning and value to both parties may lie ahead.”

• The Giver and Taker Friendship: Where the relationship becomes equally balanced and both sides feel a great deal of benefit.”

• The Trusted Confidante: ‘Someone who you will trust with sacred information. …They have your best interest at heart, as you have theirs. This is your trusted advisory board on topics and information that you couldn’t find as easily or as readily available, if it didn’t stem from a Twitter conversation.”

3. Jeff Hurt’s got a developmental model,

where we become better Tweeters once we figure out what we can offer… and then settle into it. His “Big Tweet Theory”:

• Phase 1 – The Birthing Announcement: Hello Twitter. Look what I can do.
  Tweeting “seems new, odd, fearful, fun, stupid and exciting.”

• Phase 2 – Sharing The Blue Bird’s Kitchen Sink: Here’s everything that’s happening.
  “Their tweet flood overwhelms many that are following them.”

• Phase 3 – Restraint And Insight: Communicating the good stuff
  “(T)weets contain links to more detailed (info), additional resources and provocative thoughts. Followers begin to realize that their missing out on great education and networking.”

4. From the world of Journalism, via Jay Rosen, Mike Masnick at TechDirt

considers how journalists might take different roles-- and these too look like models for Twitter:

• Reporters – who go out and do first person reporting — creating original stories, not just reposting rewritten wire copy.

• Columnists – who “start conversations and give stories another perspective.”

• Curators — who “‘cover’ the news by sorting, verifying and editing live everything good existing on the web and in the media. They make link journalism, they make the news more accessible.”

5.  And advised by Rohit Bhargava,

You can have an ‘attitude’ about your own place on Twitter. Even if you are a neophyte, you can consider yourself to be (or to be-coming) one of 9 Types of Social Media Experts

1. The Pretender
2. The Trainer/Teacher
3. The Professional Speaker
4. The Content Curator
5. The Event Organizer
6. The Community Manager
7. The Content Creator
8. The Marketing Strategist
9. The Designer/Builder

What do you do with all these different styles, models, fashions?

Think about what’s up for you this ’season’.  Take a look at some of these different collections. Try on some of these other ways of thinking about what we’re all doing on Twitter (and elsewhere on social media).

See if  there might be a few more Twitter styles to add to your wardrobe. Make it work, even better, for you.

See you on the runway Twitter.

@cvharquail

4.1.10

Many of us bloggers look at the disparity between the number of visitors to our blogs and the number of comments on our blogs, and weep shake our heads.

Why is the ratio of unique visitors to commenters 683 to 1? Or 389 to 5? Or 200 to 0?

What are those other 682, 384, or 200 readers doing? They are spending time on the page, you can tell from your analytics. But they aren’t commenting. They are ‘just lurking’.

Why? Does your blog just suck disappoint? Fail to engage people? Chat with its own echo?

Blogs are supposed to generate conversations and communities, and in so doing change the world. Comments matter because they demonstrate that readers are engaging with the ideas you’re proposing on your blog.

Comments indicate engagement

When one of your blog posts triggers authentic engagement, commenters converse not just with you the blogger but also with each other, creating a community that uses your blog as a touchstone, a resource, a gathering place.

As any Problogger will tell you, there are many things you can do to increase the likelihood that people will comment on your blog posts. Be provocative, ask questions, reply to comments, follow up with emails, and so on. All good tactics.

But all the urging to pursue these tactics implies that there is something wrong about reading and not commenting. What if nothing is wrong? What if those readers are not “just lurking” but instead are engaged in ways that don’t include commenting?

These lurkers may be engaging with your ideas, but doing it somewhere else.

Lurkers may also be engaged, but in other ways

Science tells us that lurkers are not self-centered idea scavengers. Nor are they online introverts lacking in gumption.

Science also tells us that, while some lurkers ‘just lurk’ passively, other lurkers are active. Over half of lurkers take the information that they’ve gathered in one context and use it somewhere else.

These “active lurkers” take ideas from your blog and others, use them to improve their own practice, to establish relationships, and to contribute by sharing these ideas within their more local communities.

What Active Lurkers Do With Your Ideas

Active lurkers are busy creatures. They prowl about the blogosphere:

1. Lurking for practical use.
Your lurkers take ideas from your blog and others and apply them to their own personal work.

2. Lurking for propagation.
Your lurkers take ideas from your blog and share them with others in their ‘home’ communities.

3. Lurking for personal contact.
Your lurkers take ideas and insights from your blog and use them to establish relationships… maybe with you, maybe with other readers, maybe with followers on Twitter.

Lurkers are Idea Lovecats

All active lurkers have the potential to become what Tim Sanders calls ‘lovecats‘:  people who share knowledge freely and with good intent. With the right attitude, active lurking serves the individual, facilitates relationship building, and adds to group learning.

All of this active lurking can benefit the community that your blog connects with, and the community that your blog readers participate in.

That gap between the number of the unique visitors and the number of unique comments on your blog may not be all negative.  This is especially true for those of us who blog not so much to generate conversation on our blogs, but more to get ideas out to people’s work groups and organizations.

Is there ever proof of Active Lurking?

My colleague PCM (who regularly talks with me about posts she likes but never comments on the blog itself) gave me an encouraging piece of info today. She told me that lately, when her tweens see someone in an atrocious outfit, they squeal “Get me Johnny Weir”.

Apparently my posts are having an impact at Glenfield Middle School. Not quite my target audience, but I’ll take it. Who knows where those lurkers will take these ideas next?

See Also:
Fix the Brand of Men’s Figure Skating: Send Out the Clowns, and get me Johnny Weir

Takahashi, M., Fujimoto, M. and Yamasaki, N., Active Lurking: Enhancing the Value of In-House Online Communities Through the Related Practices Around the Online Communities (April 1, 2007). MIT Sloan Research Paper No. 4646-07; CCI Working Paper No. 2007-006. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1041261

Takahashi, M., Fujimoto, M. and Yamasaki, N., The roles and effects of active lurking in in-house online communities (July 2005) Human-Computer Interaction International Conference

Thanks to Lindy Dreyer on Social Fish, for letting us know that March 19, 2010 “Love a Lurker Day“, and thus prompting this post.

Photos of Dale the Lazy Cat by Magh

The challenge of being authentic on social media can be scary.

Many organizations are afraid of being ‘on’ social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, where they (or their representatives) are accessible and active in real time. They worry that participating in real time on social media platforms will expose them as unthinking, out of touch or inauthentic.

Organizations worry how to find and translate their ‘corporate voice’ into an interactive human presence.

When organizations take their first steps onto these social media platforms, they consider their various strategies, and how they could be represented by Brandividuals, celebrity CEOs, tweeting teams, or even their corporate brand mascots.

Brand Mascots on Twitter

Compared to the human alternatives, corporate mascots can look quite appealing. Many organizations already have brand mascots that represent their important products and/or their organization. These characters already have name recognition, brand equity, and the ability to trigger an emotional connection with their customer community.

Moreover, these corporate mascots can ’speak’ in a way that reflects the desired image of the brand, since there is no actual person or thing that it (also) needs to represent. As fake as we know they are, corporate mascots can create a very authentic organizational voice.

And, an added benefit is that these corporate characters and brand mascots never do anything embarrassing (like insider trading, or infidelity, or sock puppetry) that might besmirch the corporate brand. Thus, we have the Andrex Puppy, Travelocity’s RoamingGnome, and comparethemarket.com’s meerkat Alexsandr Orlove (pictured at left).

And then we have @Shamu.

You know @Shamu. He’s “the killer whale” who represents SeaWorld on Twitter.

Up until the tragic death of trainer Dawn Brancheau at SeaWorld, @Shamu was the beguiling voice of SeaWorld on Twitter. Charming, funny, and popular, @Shamu voiced the fun side of SeaWorld, the promise of entertainment, wonder, and awe.

Who anticipated that any of SeaWorld’s orcas (all called Shamu) might actually kill a human being? And who had a plan for how to respond? Nobody.

So, it’s instructive to watch how SeaWorld is using social media to respond to a tragedy that they did not predict.

1. First (as you might expect) SeaWorld suspended @Shamu’s twitter account.

2. SeaWorld explained why they suspended the account.

SeaWorld didn’t just quiet @Shamu; they shared their reasoning and offered alternative information options. From Sea World’s blog:

About a year ago SeaWorld launched a Twitter account giving voice to Shamu. In part because of his worldwide celebrity and in part because of his ability to find humor in the world around him, @Shamu has gained a significant following on Twitter. Many of his most loyal followers have noted his absence from Twitter since the tragic events of Wednesday, February 24 at SeaWorld Orlando.

At this difficult time, @Shamu will not be active on Twitter, as users who follow@Shamu have come to expect posts that are light-hearted and perhaps a bit quirky. SeaWorld’s other accounts, including @SeaWorld_Parks, will remain active and regular updates will be communicated through Twitter and other social networking platforms.

We will continue to provide information in this space on our review of this incident and the changes to our procedures that may progress from it. We thank you for the thousands of messages of support during this extraordinarily difficult time.

In their explanation, SeaWorld acknowledged (however subtly) the disparity between @Shamu ‘the character’ and the reality of how a live orca at Sea World actually behaved.

In this blog post (above) as well as on Facebook, you can hear an authentic human voice from Sea World.

3. While they temporarily closed the @Shamu account, SeaWorld is keeping their Facebook page open. Stakeholders still have active access to the organization.

As Beth Kassab, Business Columnist at the Orlando Sentinal writes in her comprehensive account of the situation:

Promising to answer critics so directly may seem like a nightmare to many companies, but SeaWorld is seizing on the opportunity to try to shape the conversation about its business.

4. SeaWorld is using social media to respond to negative as well as supportive comments about the tragedy. And, they are continuing to discuss issues related to the orcas and the employees of SeaWorld.

To SeaWorld’s advantage, they have already been engaged with customers and critics in ongoing conversations about issues where SeaWorld and other stakeholders are at odds. You can see from their conversations on Facebook as well as from their digital profile, SeaWorld has been participating actively in conversations about whether whales should be kept in captivity and used for entertainment.

Agree or disagree with SeaWorld’s perspective or on their next steps, you can engage them about it.

What can we learn from @Shamu?

What we know about effective crisis management is that organizations that keep responding instead of going silent sustain– and can even increase– their stakeholders’ trust in them. Even though the @Shamu account went silent, SeaWorld has stayed in the conversation.

We also know that effective crisis management is not defensive, but instead takes a learning posture. As long as SeaWorld stays in an authentic conversation with stakeholders, they make it possible to sustain or rebuild the good relationships they already with their stakeholders.

What can we learn about authenticity and social media in a crisis?

It will be interesting to see what SeaWorld learns. Certainly, SeaWorld (and everyone else watching them) will learn something about how to use social media to address a crisis. Since the organization has already been actively engaged in conversations about conservation, animal rights, and so on, it’s unclear what new perspective they’ll get on these issues as they are triggered anew by this tragedy.

But while SeaWorld as an organization may not learn, say or do anything more on these issues than it already has, all of those engaging online with SeaWorld will themselves be learning… about SeaWorld’s position on these issues and on SeaWorld’s commitment to its community.

In general, corporations take a hyper-rational, calculative approach to managing risk. It’s all about prediction and prevention, which is fine. But, prediction and prevention are never 100% foolproof– after all, orcas might be called “killer whales” but that doesn’t mean you expect an orca in captivity to kill his human trainer. Yet, accidents happen, disasters occur, tragedy strikes.

Organizations need not only to prevent risk on social media, but also they need to use social media effectively to respond to risks they can not predict. Let’s keep listening for SeaWorld’s  authentic voice, as they continue to respond.

This headline could be puzzling…  What could possible make Work-Life Fit and Enterprise 2.0 relevant to each other? After all, one is a challenge of the modern workplace, and the other is a challenge to the modern workplace.

They come together because both concepts ask us to redesign our organizations.

Although Enterprise 2.0 and Work-Life Fit strategies do not share all of the same goals, the two initiatives are complementary. Both aim to help us manage an ‘always on’ environment, where resources are used efficiently and effectively, in ways that sustain rather than drain an organization’s capacity. But currently, only work-life fit strategies intend to make work life better for us people.

Quick overview: Enterprise 2.0

Enterprise 2.0 is technology-initiated organizational change centered on ‘emergent social software programs’ that facilitate networked communication within and across organizations.  Enterprise 2.0 is conventionally and initially a technology-focused strategy, but it can (and should) encompass more.

Like all technological changes, Enterprise 2.0 will shape and be shaped by organizational culture and change. Even if your organization currently uses Enterprise 2.0 software and approaches in limited ways, chances are E2.0 technologies will permeate and reshape your organization and your work life sooner rather than later.

Enterprise 2.0 strategies start with tools to connect employees and make information gathering, sharing and using easier. Among many other benefits, Enterprise 2.0 approaches promise to make work more efficient by removing unnecessary barriers and building in flexibility so that resources move more fluidly to where they are needed, when they are needed. This should mean that better results are achieved with with less wasted effort and less effort overall.

The downside of this technology enabled flexibility reach is that the technology makes it convenient and normal to expect individuals to participate wherever and whenever they are ‘needed’, even when they are not at work. You probably already experience the incremental incursion of work technology into your non-work life.

Quick overview: Work-life Fit

Work-Life Fit is the strategic organizational initiative centered on building organizations that can adapt and respond to the changing needs and commitments of individual employees and members. You’ve been hearing about work-life fit since the dawn of the industrial revolution. You may have heard of it as work-family balance, or duel career dilemmas (highlighting the two most prominent forms of work-life misfit). The problems existed before the entry of women into management, but the increasing numbers of women managers and the feminist movement have worked together to raise our consciousness.

We now understand as we haven’t before how much the structure of our work organizations and the jobs within them precludes prevents us from staying authentic, present, and nourished in our lives outside work.

Put these ideas together

Work-Life Fit is a problem caused by how we design our organizations and the jobs within them. Enterprise 2.0 is a strategy about redesigning our organizations so that we use technology to improve how we work together.

So my recommendation is:
Let’s redesign organizations to maximize the potential of Enterprise 2.0 approaches. Let’s make organizations more networked. Let’s become more collaborative, more innovate and more flexible, in ways that let us find a healthy, authentic fit between work and the rest of life.

Let’s approach Enterprise 2.0 in a way that embraces the needs of the whole employee and the human organization so we no longer work in organizations that squeeze the life out of us.

Is there anything, really, that prevents us from doing both at once?

He squeezed into the hole in the…from Laura Mary on Flickr

Are flatter organizations really “better”? If they are better, how?

Hey, I already wrote a dissertation, so I’m not going to take on that question in its entirety. And, I’m not going to do the proper academic thing of being super-specific and qualifying my points. You got complaints? Email me and I’ll send you the scientific citations. Or, I’ll chair your dissertation. < grin >

Otherwise, bear with me here. I want to re-consider a really important assumption about one way that flatter organizations with internal network structures are better. (I’m thinking about the organizations advocated by folks bringing social media inside organizations, mostly proponents of Enterprise 2.0 and social business.)

Flatter, more networked organizational structures do not significantly reduce power inequalities among employees or across domains within a firm.

Just last week I was complaining that proponents of socially-mediated organizations aren’t being radical enough. After all, these new work arrangements and organizational structures can really change the world!

Think about it—the ideal network structure and work processes of Enterprise 2.0 look an awful lot like feminist organizations. And, we are already seeing emergent networks of social advocates that demonstrate more collaborative, more egalitarian dynamics. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that these kinds of structures, when brought into your basic business organization, don’t necessarily bring along with them a real change in employee relationships within the firm. The change to a more networked structure can make an organization more productive, but it doesn’t make the organization more egalitarian, more democratic, or more just.

A bummer, I know.

Studies show that organizations that are flatter because they have a network structure encapsulated or embedded inside them still, in the big picture, feel and act like hierarchies (Dean, 2007).

Oh, sure, you as an employee feel a bit freer in your day-to-day situation (especially if you have some control over your time). But, overall, you and your colleagues are still locked into a bureaucratic-ish organization where authority over medium and large-scale decision remains concentrated in a few high levels of (management) employees.

Flatter does not mean that power is more evenly-distributed across the levels that remain.

In a “flatter” organization, there are fewer levels of decision-making authority (e.g., less hierarchy) than there were before. We assume that when levels are reduced, some amount of decision-making power is freed up. (For example, if we get rid of the brand supervision level, someone else at some other level gets to choose the new label while someone else sets cost targets.)

Further, we assume that if a level is removed, the decision-making power of that level gets evenly distributed across the remaining levels. For example, if the organization drops from 5 levels to 4, the power once held by the eliminated level gets equally distributed across the remaining 4 levels. Everybody gets 25% more decision-making power. More power to us, less power over us.

Our assumptions are wrong. It doesn’t work that way. Power is rarely redistributed in any kind of egalitarian fashon. A little power might go to the levels below the ones eliminated, but the important power stays up above.

Although power gets redistributed in a network, the surrounding hierarchy doesn’t actually give up power that matters.

When organizations restructure some units into to networks, they are usually very strategic about what ‘power’ and ‘authority’ is delegated to the network or team.

Networks/teams get more “production-level authority” over who’s doing what within the overall project, what parts of the day are spent where, and the like. But the team or network doesn’t get ‘high level’ decision making authority. This still remains with upper management.

Even when managers in the hierarchy above the network solicit input and invite innovative ideas, ultimately it is the managers (still) in the hierarchy that make the big decisions. Authority is still concentrated in higher-level managers, who make the important decisions, decisions about whether there will be layoffs, how much money goes into everyone’s 401Ks, whether the project is outsourced, etc.

Flatter may mean more power over your immediate situation, but still the same (low) amount of power over the big picture, adding to a minor net reduction in power difference.

A bummer, I know.

Some people are going to argue that networked organizations really do have different internal power dynamics that do traditional hierarchies. That’s true, and sometimes the degree of shared power is really significant. In fact, given all this additional autonomy and collaboration and input-giving, employees might not even notice that they still lack power where it matters the most: over the distribution of gains.

Keep in mind the ‘real’ business reason that organizations restructure and create internal networks. Organizations restructure to improve productivity. They want more stuff produced and they want to produce it at a higher quality. Why? So that the organization is more profitable.

The gains of a flatter, more networked structure are rarely distributed in an egalitarian way.

Consider where those productivity gains go– into “surplus value”, otherwise known as profit.

When the employees of an organization become more productive because they feel more autonomy over their work, because they have more input into decision-making, and because they are able to collaborate with less friction, where do these profits go? Are they evenly distributed across the layers of employees whose work created this extra value? Because if gains were distributed this way, if would demonstrate quite clearly that the organization was more egalitarian in a material way (pun intended).

I’m not saying that, in order to be more egalitarian, everybody in the organization has to get paid the same. I’m arguing that in an organization that is “flatter”, where there is more democracy, more autonomy and more decision-making power for employees, we would see all employees benefiting financially at least at similar rates.

Go ahead, call me Dr. Buzzkill. Bringing some management science into the picture does refocus things, doesn’t it.

The overall point is, creating networks inside organizations won’t necessarily make these organizations more egalitarian, more democratic, and better for everyone.

We can use network structures, shared decision processes, and collaborative work systems to make organizations more just, if we do this intentionally. On purpose. With purpose.

We just have to make egalitarianism and justice overarching goals. These goals have to be as important, if not more important, than increased innovation, nicer interpersonal interactions, and yes more surplus value.

Caveats include:

Organizations starting from scratch (i.e., greenfields) find it easier to create egalitarian structures, though research shows that these structures can find it harder to sustain legitimacy, depending on their institutional environment.

Organizations that are organized around a mission or purpose (e.g., non-profits, ideological organizations) often have core values that override hierarchical power hoarding.

Yes, I am implicitly explicitly saying that organizations that are more democratic, more egalitarian, and more just are ‘better’. No, I am not saying that all organizations should be flat, or that hierarchy should be abolished.

More to come.

Resources:
Joan Acker, 2006. Inequality Regimes: Gender, Class, and Race in Organizations, Gender & Society 2006; 20; 441- 464.

Conaldi, Guido. 2009. Flat for the few, steep for the many: Structural cohesion as a measure of hierarchy in FLOSS communities. Working paper. Institute of Management, University of Lugano, CH-6904 Lugano, CH. guido.conaldi@lu.unisi.ch

Dean, Paul. 2007. Flat and Egalitarian? Evaluating worker hierarchies in software companies. Unpublished Master’s Thesis.  University of Maryland, College Park, MD.

Rajan, Raghuram G. & Wulf, Julie, 2006. “Are perks purely managerial excess? Journal of Financial Economics Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 1-33, January.

Photos from Flickr:
Ladders and Lamp from tomswift46
Jacob’s Ladder  from italianjob17
Jacob’s Ladder from ShellyS

I was excited to hear from a few social media/Enterprise 2.0 advocates after my post last week asking When will social business become social change business? Special thanks to Jon Husband of Wirearchy, who not only confirmed that he has a revolutionary agenda behind his networked models of organizing but who also sent me some of his own work on the subject. I am excited to be finding more colleagues who share the vision of real social change in organizations behind these relationship technology innovations.

As I geared up over the weekend to start blogging about social change and social media, I was preparing to write more about my concern that what proponents of Enterprise 2.0/Social Business are suggesting is not transformational enough. However, we need also to consider that not only are these tools and structures not as revolutionary as they could be — some of these changes aren’t even as revolutionary as we already assume they are.

So I’m backing up a little to look at a different set of assumptions, the assumptions about why internal social media & networks might be revolutionary in the first place.

Take, for example, two very popular myths about the effect of more networked social/production/creation structure social networking inside organizations.

People assume that:

1. Networked work flow, the kind of workflow enhanced by social media within workplaces (e.g., wikis, google wave) will lead to flatter organizations.

2. Flatter organization are better, because flatter organizations reduce power differences between employees. They create more democracy, more autonomy and more decision-making power for employees.

Neither of these assumptions is true.

In this post, I’ll (start to) tackle the myth that networked structures reduce hierarchical levels. The myth that ‘flatter organizations are better’ is the subject of the post following this one.

First, what does it mean to be ‘flatter’?

Simply, to call an organization flatter is to say that it has fewer levels of decision-making authority, power, and control wrapped around the work.

Here’s an example: Instead of having a brand assistant, assistant brand manager, brand supervisor, brand director, category manager, division manager (you see where this is going) we have instead the brand “team”, the brand supervisor, and the category director. That’s going from 6 hierarchical levels to 3.

The idea is that within the team or network there are not only fewer steps to get anything decided or approved, but also that  in your own particular role you have more autonomy over a larger part of the production/creation process. This is a ‘good’ thing, because (most) people like to have some control over what they do.

The big change happens in the arrangements within the ‘team’. These days, these arrangements are made possible by communication technology that allows people to share information more directly, without it being mediated by their boss or someone else’s boss. They also get to contribute information (have input, as it were) without having it be passed up and then down some organizational ladder. So far, so good.

However, the network structure doesn’t permeate the whole organization.

The secret is outside the network.

When organizations adopt networked or team structures, they tuck these networks into existing managerial hierarchies. The basic hierarchical model and mindset remain in overall control.

And, sometimes these networks themselves have what are called ‘worker hierarchies’ (Dean, 2007). These hierarchies can be more fluid than those outside the network, since people within the network/team often change leadership roles with each project. (This also dilutes the feeling of being controlled, since you’re in charge on project A and she is in charge on project B).

It’s like the difference between a regular M&M (hierarchy) and a peanut butter M&M. Even if one section of the candy is peanut butter, the structure that matters most is created by the chocolate & candy coating. The center may be softer, but it’s still an M&M.

Now let me follow the candy example with something a little less sweet:

“Hierarchy is a property of a network’s structure, not something that a network replaces”
(Barley & Kunda, 2001, p 78).

Ultimately, embedding networks or teams in to an organization can flatten the organization slightly, but not in a way that transforms the organizations or the employees’ overall influence within them.

That’s not so bad if what you ultimately wanted was an M&M, and not a Hershey’s kiss.

But what if you were hoping for a more significant change?

See Also:
M. Ezzamel, and H. Willmott, “Accounting for Team Work: A Critical Study of Group-Based Systems of Organizational Control”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 43, 1998, pp. 358-396.
S. Barley, and G. Kunda, Bringing Work Back In”, Organization Science,Vol. 12, No. 1, January-February 2001, pp. 76-95.

When Will “Social Business” Become Social Change Business?
Can an organization not be ‘ready’ for Enterprise 2.0? (fastforwardblog.com)

Just a note: 5 of the 6 flavors of M&M candy are represented by male characters. The peanut butter one is represented by a female character. What’s that about?

Just a quick rant here, triggered by and not quite in response to Rachel Happe’s post on The Social Organization & Womenomics. In her post, Rachel wonders whether a truly ’social’ organization or business might be more accommodating to the real-world, real-life pressures of managing work and family demands, not only for women but also for men.

I am glad to see someone with Rachel’s insight and influence writing about gender relationships, work & family in relation to socially-mediated organizations and business — why shouldn’t we be designing remarkably better organizations?

Why shouldn’t we be re-creating the worlds of work and commerce, as we implement and develop all these great tools for working together?

Alas, I fear that a whole lot of people talking about “Social Business”, Enterprise 2.0, Organization 2.0, Wirearchy, and the myriad of labels for “organizations facilitated internally by social media” are missing an important issue, one that Rachel only begins to untangle for us.

They may be making business and organizations more effective at getting work done, but they aren’t paying much attention to making businesses support us.

Many of these advocates of Enterprise 2.0 emphasize that new tools will bring about new work patterns, and new work patterns will bring about new social relationships.

This is both true, and not true. It is true in the sense that technology always changes behavior – whether or not these changes are intentional or desirable.

However, it is not true that these changes will be radical or that they will transform our world for the better. This is because too many people are thinking inside the box, and not even considering how we could completely rebuild organizational structures, and in so doing, remarkably change our world.

Too much technology, not enough vision.

The conversation about social media and organizations is too much about ‘business change’. This conversation should be about ’social change’.

The vision of the organizations these new media will create is not feminist enough, not inclusive enough, and not revolutionary enough. We need to talk about how to use these technologies intentionally to transform human relationships within and across organizations, and human relationships inside, outside, and in relation to work.

Otherwise, we’ll simply re-inscribe the same old oppressions, the same old tensions, and the same old disappointments we already have about work and organizations. We’ll just be able to talk about them more easily on Mixx or Pringo.

To be sure, there will be changes from ’social business’:

• Hive minding means that more people will get a chance to contribute to knowledge and participate in innovation.

• Shared decisions making and cross-functional expertise will make power more networked than individually-based, and thus more people will have influence.

• More transparent organizational boundaries will make it easier to hold organizations accountable for their words and their actions.

• Market-power dynamics that shift control over products, brand and reputation from organizations to customer communities will make stakeholder alliances more influential.

• Mobile, distance, collaborative, project-oreinted work tools will make results more important than facetime, relaxing location and timing constraints and increasing productivity.

But where is focus on values?

Where is the visioning that considers:

- What could innovation  be like if people felt invited and valued?

- What could organizational democracy and engagement  be like if we intentionally flattened hierarchy and opened decision-making processes?

- What could organizational openess be like if we actually valued customers, suppliers, and organization members as much as we value shareholders?

- What could flexible work processes be like if we not only designed them to increase productivity but also designed them to increase freetime, time off, family time, and recreation?

Too much work, not enough life.

Why is the conversation all about making work more efficient, without focusing on making life or the world better? When will ’social’ business become social change business?

There is a link here between social business and womenomics, and between organization and feminism:

If organizations really value what is social about us– not only about our work processes but about us as people –  they (businesses) and we (workers) would intentionally create businesses that reflected feminist values.

Social media already resonates with feminist principles of leadership and community, so why shouldn’t these principles also intentionally shape whole organizations as organizations bring social media tools and norms inside?

When will ’social’ business become social change business?

I promised a few colleagues that I would be a little more authentic, and a little bolder, about calling attention to the opportunities that feminist, inclusive, social-change oriented principles could bring to business this year…. so here’s the first step.

Rant over– discussion just beginning. Join me?

Thanks Rachel, Cali, Donna, The MamaBee, MissRogue, Beth, Lena, Vanessa & Jill for the nudge.

Related articles

• Julia Moulden: New Year, New Job, New Radical (huffingtonpost.com)
• Enterprise 2.0 Conversations (themarketingblog.wordpress.com)
• My Nose, Other People’s Business (AuthenticOrganizations.com)