5 Tips for Work Life Alignment, Not Balance
Do you go home every work night feeling drained, with no energy left for your family, friends and other personal activities? While this is normal on occasion, it should not be the norm. Too many people believe the solution is work/life balance. Yet have you ever met someone that has found the perfect balance where work never comes up at home and home life never comes up at work? In contrast, many people have found the perfect work/life alignment. Work/life alignment occurs when one is equally comfortable at work and outside the office, handling both personal and professional activities in either environment. It's amazing how much more energy and enjoyment one finds when they stop trying to balance their work and personal life and focus instead on aligning the two.
Below are 5 tips that help me achieve greater alignment:
- Be Yourself at Work
- Work for a Mission You Believe In
- Prioritize Your Work
- Find a Boss You Trust
- Establish Friendships at Work
Are you putting on a different face when you go to work? The business term is a lack of diversity or individual acceptance. We're not talking just about skin color, religious beliefs or personal lifestyle. Instead, we're talking about who you are at the core. You could be in a room full of people that look like you, have similar philosophies and even follow the same interests outside of work. However, you could be miles apart in your personalities. You may be a boisterous, outgoing individual, who likes to tell it like it is. Meanwhile, your coworkers may discourage this in preference of a calm demeanor, a quiet office or a more formalized interaction. Neither approach is right or wrong, just different. One may be more appropriate than another for certain companies. Regardless, you need to find the environment where you can be yourself to be happiest. Personality tests, like the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator can help you better identify and align your personality with others.
Howard Behar, former president of Starbucks Coffee International wrote about a similar challenge early in his career. After a big promotion, the CEO of the furniture company where he worked pulled him aside and told him how, now that he was an executive, he needed to stop wearing his heart on the sleeve so much. Behar was crushed as he tried to contain his attitude, bottling up his personality and forcing himself to act like someone he was not. He was uncomfortable and unhappy every day. In the end, Behar left that company and joined Starbucks, where he helped the company become an amazing success - all while being himself and wearing his heart on the sleeve. Two for-profit companies, one allowed him to be himself, resulting in remarkable success for both Behar and the company. The other company you've likely never heard of before.
2. Work for a Mission You Believe In
Where you work does not have to be an altruistic non-profit, but it needs to have a mission in which you believe. Do you work for a company that makes clothes, or a company that improves people's lives, by providing the fashions that make them look good, feel more confident and be more comfortable? Does your company have moral and ethical standards that align with your own? Even if the company does not produce products you use or fully comprehend, it may have a mission to support non-profits, benefit the community in which it is located or otherwise provide some greater good to the world through a mission you can believe in. If it does not, how can you justify the effort you put into that company? And if you can't reasonably justify your work for some greater good than your financial income, you'll always feel like you're spending too much time at the office.
Now, if you can't find a mission at your company you believe in, must you leave that company? Perhaps, but not necessarily. First, try creating that mission. Perhaps organize the next community support event or non-profit fund raising campaign. Whatever your passion, chances are there is some way you can create a mission within or closely aligned to your company. If not, then yes, maybe it is time to find another employer with a mission that moves you.
3. Prioritize Your Work
All too often we believe that to be successful, one must do everything that is asked of them, as quickly as possible. We believe working 60 hours a week, month after month after month assures recognition and success. However, that is often not the case. How many people do you know that work ridiculous hours and ultimately achieved more senior levels? The reality is that the work horse in the room is often appreciated, but rarely promoted. The greatest leaders tend to be those that know how to prioritize. They do not say "no", but simply, "not now". Successful alignment means recognizing that many ideas have great merit and value, but only those with the greatest value should be prioritized against finite resources.
Look at your favorite leaders and mentors, for example. Most successful leaders are not running around in a hectic pace or seemingly under a great deal of stress to address everything possible. Instead, the leaders most people would like to emulate seem calm, cool and collected. These leaders have enough time to do what is right - what they prioritize as most important, now. These are the leaders that have their work and personal life aligned, in part, because they know how to prioritize at the office.
4. Find a Boss You Trust
When you work for someone you respect, both parties benefit. When you are encouraged by a superior and believe they want to help your career, you want to do the same for them. In such a scenario, you will find a way to achieve what your supervisor needs you to get done and often, more. The inverse is also true. When you do not trust your boss or believe they only seek their own success over the team's, you will have little motivation. People with bad bosses find the quickest way, to the easiest solution, to provide just barely what their boss needs. Nobody's going above and beyond for a boss they do not trust.
The book Five Dysfunctions of a Team (on the recommended reading list) explains how trust is at the heart of every team. Without trust, there will be an inattention to results, a fear of conflict, lack of commitment and an avoidance of accountability. Therefore, without trust, there will be little professional success, without success, limited professional fulfillment and your personal life suffers.
5. Establish Friendships at Work
In the last post, I mentioned the Gallup Poll that highlighted the importance of employees having friends at work. This study shows the benefits to the business, such as greater morale, higher levels of quality and strong alignment to the company's mission (for more, see the links above). In addition to the benefits to the employer, there are strong benefits to the employees. Friends at work also provide a support network when one needs to blow off a little steam or has a personal emergency. The friend network improves an employee's ability to feel comfortable at the office and strengthens their feeling of belonging. When a team member has friends around them, the office can shift from just work to a place where they see friends while accomplishing tasks.
Try this for yourself. If you already have friends at work, great - imagine what it would be like without them. Where would you turn to relax and how comfortable would you feel? If you do not have friends at work, try harder. You'll be amazed how anxious some people may be to get to know you on a more personal basis. If you are really not comfortable making friends at work directly, try to at least find some manner of friendship aligned with your work, such as in a professional network.
Too many people today still try to balance separate lives. "Try" is the key word here. Like a teeter-totter, you can not stay perfectly balanced all the time. However, if you seek alignment rather than balance, you find greater, more sustainable results. When you are aligned, you are equally happy addressing personal life at the office and professional matters at home, as necessary. While there will always be a primary focus on one or the other, both will offer equal comfort, confidence and success in any environment. When this occurs, you know you have work-life alignment and not just a balancing act.
Labels: Career, Friends, Inspiration, Management, NPO, Personal, Personnel, Philanthropy, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Technology, Team Building
5 Reasons Leaders Should Not Fear Social Media
The best leaders today understand the power of relationships, especially when it comes to business. As a result, most leaders have a strong network of colleagues that, over the years, become friends. These friendships and business partnerships extend online as well. However, many straggling organizations still insist upon blocking traffic to "social sites". In contrast, the best led companies do not fear social media - they embrace it. The strongest leaders leverage the benefits of social technology while addressing the risks in a manner that empowers their teams but protects the company. Below are 5 reasons great leaders should not fear social media and a balanced reflection on the risks.
1. Best Friends At Work
Who still believes that work is impersonal? When was it necessary to ensure that your business contacts are not also friends? Need we remind some organizations of the Gallup Organization's findings from their study of high performing organizations:
Gallup... observed that employees who report having a best friend at work were1:
- 43% more likely to report having received praise or recognition for their work in the last seven days.
- 37% more likely to report that someone at work encourages their development
- 35% more likely to report coworker commitment to quality.
- 28% more likely to report that in the last six months, someone at work has talked to them about their progress
- 27% more likely to report that the mission of their company makes them feel their job is important
- 27% more likely to report that their opinions seem to count at work.
- 21% more likely to report that at work, they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day.
2. Companies Don't Buy & Sell, People Do
When it comes to major agreements and long term commitments, people do not simply buy something from a company. Instead, they build partnerships and gain understanding from those partners about that company and their products. Then, business partners create mutually beneficial, value generating agreements together. The net result, after years of success on both ends of those deals is a stronger relationship, often extending into friendships. Those friendships can generate trust and efficiency which transcends employers, creates stronger networks and brings value to the next company by which either partner is employed. No longer does a person bring only their experience and skills to a company that hires them, but they bring the skills, experience and trust of their network as well.
3. Who Do You Want in Your Foxhole?
When times get tough, who do you want in your foxhole with you? Someone you only know based on their numbers, contracts, functional requirements and other formalities? Do you really think such an individual will stick their neck out for you or go that extra mile, unless the compensation is there? Or, do you want someone you've known well, whose family you know by name and whose favorite charity you supported last year? If nothing else, it helps to know your business partner's spouse will yell at them if they screw up a deal they committed to you on.
4. Innovation
Structured, internal, corporate innovation alone is too constrained for today's global economy. Innovation does not work well in a vacuum. The more creative outlets and inlets you provide your entire staff, the greater the chance they will discover breakthrough innovations. As your staff listens to their friends complain about how the products your competitors make, fail to meet their needs, they will better understand the implications of your engineering, research & development. The more your teams hear their contacts mention the need for someone to invent a solution to xyz problem, the greater the chance your company will create and solve that new market problem.
5. Mass Dialogue
Never before in history, has the opportunity for mass dialogue existed in such a manner as what social media provides. Print media creates mass, one way communication. Television does the same. Static website are no better. Previous communications technologies equate to shouting at your customers. With social media, feedback mechanisms like rated reviews, number of views and frequency of comments provide a means by which leaders can proactively hear the unified voice that is their consumer mass. This creates, in essence, a platform by which leaders can carry on a mass dialogue, like never before.
Dark Side
Don't get me wrong, their are risks inherent to social media as well. Yes, your employee could reveal some deep, dark, corporate secret. Or, someone claiming to speak on your organization's behalf may slip and act unprofessionally in a business forum. There may even be a greater volume of technical risks, such as computer viruses, worms and social engineering in these mediums. However, the solution to these risks are the same they've always been: education, training, policy and appropriate network security. The solution is not cutting off your company from opportunities for fear of the unknown.
In the end, as technical leaders in your organization, it is up to you to set the expectations of the company with regard to innovative opportunities. This evolution in communication technology is no different. The next time you debate blocking the latest social media site, consider, instead, joining the site and putting your great staff to task in finding the right way to keep that channel open for the corporation to leverage all benefits, without exposing you to the usual risks.
1. http://gmj.gallup.com/content/511/Item-10-Best-Friend-Work.aspx July 10, 2009.
Labels: Blog, Collaboration, Friends, Innovation, Personnel, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Technology, Team Building, Web 2.0
Conference Leadership Impressions from SAP SAPPHIRE
I was very fortunate to be offered a coveted pass to SAP's Sapphire conference last week. This is one of the larger conferences in the IT industry and specifically targets senior managers and executives requiring large-scale applications. As a result, although I was there for my employer and focused my time on their solutions, I also observed some of the leadership styles by so many information technology executives attending this conference. The attendance was down - a sign of the economic times, but there remained a broad range of leadership styles represented by Speakers, Vendors and Bloggers. Below are observations on the leadership styles these individuals presented at the conference*.
Speakers & SAP Executives (Positive)
While commitments back at the office prevented me from catching all of the keynote speakers and SAP executives presenting, I was able to get to most of the top keynotes.
Opening Keynote: Abbe Mulders & Steven Levitt (Neutral)
Major themes for this conference included clarity, transparency, Sustainability and, of course, advances in technology. A promising start for SAP Executive leadership and speaker expectations. The conference kicked off with Ms. Abbe Mulders, ASUG Vice Chairperson, Dow Corning Corporation CIO and Mr. Steven Levitt author of FREAKONOMICS. Abbe provided a good welcome and spoke of the power of ASUG, (the American SAP User Group). Again, a plus for recognizing the power of users, collaboration and support. Levitt provided a very revealing life history that included the fact that his father was not stellar in medical studies and practice, but chose the very uncommon field of intestinal gas. It worked for him - he became recognized as an expert in his field, even including a GQ article dubbing him "The King of Farts". Following in his footsteps, in a manner, the younger Levitt found himself terrible at Math - a bad sign for economists. However, he focused on very unique circumstances in which very few "self-respecting" economists practiced. It worked for him as well. This emphasis on "anything's possible" when you focus on the right area, was also a positive for leadership.
The only real negative from the opening Keynote was Levitt's surprising factor that drunk walkers are 8 times more likely to die than drunk drivers. Shocking as this may be, he avoided addressing the risks to others in equivalent detail. One would think drunk drivers are far more likely to kill others than drunk walkers. A setback for transparency by speakers at the conference.
Léo Apotheker (Positive)
Well rehearsed and spoken, Apotheker presented the importance of clarity and transparency SAP provides its clients to their customers. Also surprisingly strong was this Co-CEO of SAP's message on sustainability. Apotheker claimed the SAP sustainability roadmap is the first in their industry and set a goal for the organization to make every business process sustainable. Strong points for good leadership. Apotheker's style tended toward a traditional corporate leader - befitting his role.
Ian Kimbell (Positive)
Mr. Kimbell, SAP's self-proclaimed "Demo Boy" was first introduced at the conference while demonstrating solutions for Mr. Apotheker's keynote. Probably the most polished of all presenters, Kimbell seemed more comfortable on stage than most people are simply in their own skin. Kimbell's demonstrations, humor and general ease on stage was so good, in fact, that some people have questioned the reality behind his demonstrations and the effort required to achieve similar goals - was the demonstration too simplified? Still, Kimbell is to be applauded, especially for his later performance, balancing the ever-dynamic Hasso Plattner. Kimbell presented strong leadership through thorough preparation and charisma. A traditional leadership style, perhaps leaning a bit toward the hero-worship model, but positive nonetheless.
Hasso Plattner (Positive)
Co-Founder of SAP, he's been called the company's "Rock Star". In a conference that touted transparency, there were none more transparent than Hasso Plattner. His presentation was very technical for the crowd, but still remarkably clear given his to-and-fro speaking points. With comments like, "SAP may not want to tell you this" or speaking to examples that were still in proof-of-concept phase, Plattner suggested the most down-to-earth mentality of those on stage that day. If you wanted the reality of a situation, you knew Plattner was your person. Whether he could be considered a servant-leader would take much more research, but Plattner's ability to operate at a remarkably senior level while balancing in-depth technical details was very promising. One thing's certain, he did not over-rehearse his presentation.
Vendors (Negative)
Vendors with positive leadership were too difficult to identify from brief interactions on the conference floor. Poor leadership, on the other hand, was all too easy to spot. A wide variety of vendors were represented. From behemoths like IBM and Accenture, to companies most have never heard of. One vendor surprised me by asking if he could scan my badge without even speaking to me (a practice which would only add my name and contact information to his undoubtedly growing spammer's list). Also standing out on the floor were the obvious ploys to attract attention through any means possible. I remained disappointed by the number of "Booth Beauties" (other terms are more common). I still find it hard to believe that companies with quality products should have any need for these tactics and therefore, made it a point to avoid these stands. Milder marketing ploys, were also prevalent, such as the expensive sport cars, power equipment and sizable freebies. While there were undoubtedly plenty of well-led organizations on the floor, unfortunately, the negative still stood out. This resulted in a set-back for overall conference leadership impressions. (Note: I am pleased to say that the vendors I work with were all professionally represented at the conference).
Bloggers (Positive)
Contributing to the discussions and education was a great group of bloggers. Twitter was a popular means of sharing thoughts and feedbcak on the presenters, while other bloggers shared their proposed articles to come, following the conference. Watching these groundswells in action at any conference is always exciting. Within minutes of a presenter's notable commitment, the quote and feedback on that quote, was already online for the world to see and being discussed. Yes, social technology has truly brought the power to the people. Throughout the conference, though disagreements arose, it remained constructive on Twitter and blogs - another positive for the good guys and strong leadership from the Blogging community.
Now the conference is over, we've returned to offices piled full with issues to be addressed and fires to put out, and what have we learned? Besides the excellent lessons on SAP technology, strategy and opportunities, what have attendees experienced from a leadership perspective? They saw a positive side to SAP's executives, a negative side from many vendors, and a positive leadership example from the blogging community. Net result? Kudos to SAP for not only presenting their technologies, strategy and people in a positive light, but for also a providing a net-positive leadership experience.
* Observations are from the conference only, I did not take into account their character or broader leadership methodologies.
Labels: Authentic Leadership, Blog, Collaboration, IBM, Management, Reviews, Servant-Leadership, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Technology
The Future of Leadership (from a conversation with Bill George)
Through ExecuNet, I recently had the opportunity to speak with Bill George, a former CEO of Medtronic, now a professor at Harvard Business School and author of True North, Finding Your True North and Authentic Leadership. Bill's perspectives on Leadership support the servant-leader model and his work has been referenced as an example of measurable success through servant leadership. As a result, I was excited to hear Mr. George speak and ask his views on technology's impact on future leaders.
In the beginning of the call, Mr. George defined his views on authentic leadership. Bill stated that we need 4 things from leaders:
- Alignment
- Empowerment
- Service
- Collaboration
- The Baby-Boomer generation of leaders has been too "Me focused" (over all)
- Generation X is more "We Focused" than "Me focused"
- Today's younger work force is not motivated by the "Command-and-Control" model, resulting in talent acquisition challenges for companies still operating under this model
- Today's organizational model is too focused on the "proven skills" of individuals
- We need to be more focused on talent and capacity to learn (the rate of change will not slow)
- Our organizational models need to evolve into a more integrated solution, more "like the Internet" and less "hierarchical"
- The "Taker type" of leaders (those that only take, while others only give) will not succeed in the future
- We need to focus on "Ready, Fire, Aim" - the market is changing so quickly now that organizations focused on "Ready, Aim, Fire" will have difficulty passing "aim"
- Social technology is part of the answer to being a more effective leader
- We are just getting started in our capacity to leverage this technology
- We will still need small, peer-based groups, but not as many of the hierarchical groups
- Legitimate networks will be necessary - not just mass connections
- Great leaders of the future will be successful networkers and leverage people and tools to find answers and solve problems quickly
- We are becoming more global and technology is connecting people as they move all over the globe
- Technology is enabling everything he discussed today (less hierarchy, more "we focused")
Labels: Authentic Leadership, Bill George, Collaboration, Harvard, Management, Medtronic, Servant-Leadership, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Technology, Strategy, Team Building
Servant Leadership: The Answer to Leading From Behind
Whether you are the CEO of a Wall Street darling, managing a 3rd generation main street business or reforming social injustices, one thing is certain - we all feel behind today. From corporate scandals to our economic crisis, poor leadership has created obstacles for us all. Therefore, how we get out of this mess will take a different type of leadership. We need leaders that inspire us. Leaders motivated by something greater than themselves. Leaders focused on sustainable success over hollow, short-term gains. What we need is Servant Leadership. With servant leaders leveraging technology and a focus on the right results, yes we can, lead from behind.Leading from behind starts with the right character, vision and selflessness to inspire; traits that servant leaders Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa exemplified. These individuals all led from behind, knew there was a better way and forged the path to success through service to those they led. However, servant-leadership is effective in any field, not just social reform. Consider, for example, servant leaders in business like Herb Kelleher, Sam Walton and Max DePree.
Kelleher created and led Southwest airlines to be among the most successful companies, bucking one of the most devastating trends in its industry. Fortune Magazine even referred to Kelleher as perhaps the best CEO in America. This servant leader emphasized that people take themselves lightly, but their jobs seriously. As an example of service to those he led, Kelleher was known to spend holidays loading baggage with ground crews.
Like Kelleher, Sam Walton knew the key to success was serving the people that served the organization. Walton was famous for saying, "The folks on the front lines - the ones who actually talk to the customer - are the only ones who really know what's going on out there. " Walton also taught that customers were the real boss, not the stockholders.
Both Kelleher and Walton's beliefs aligned with Max DePree, former CEO and Chairman of Herman Miller, one of America's foremost furniture manufactures. DePree wrote "Leadership is an Art" and "Leadership Jazz". Both books received praise from President Clinton and other famous leaders. DePree stated, "The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant. "
Many more examples of servant leaders in business exist, like Howard Behar of Starbucks fame or Ken Melrose from the turnaround of Toro Company. There are also other companies that found success through servant leadership, companies like Medtronic, Service Master and Marriott International. Furthermore, leadership experts in academia frequently proclaim the need for servant leadership, like Jim Collins' did in his book Good To Great.
Those who follow the path of servant leadership will have something in their favor - technology. Advances in social technologies are shifting the balance of power to the masses, thus increasing the demand for effective servant leadership and empowering those who leverage it. One recent example was the success of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. This "community organizer" used servant leadership, empowered by effective social technologies, to help win his election. Numbers like 6.5 million online donations, 13 million email addresses, 35,000 volunteer groups, his own social networking site, 70 million online fundraisers and over 400,000 blog posts all played an undeniable factor in the election . Servant leaders today will leverage social technology tools for the success of their organizations.
When we take this opportunity to perform as servant leaders, we will ensure the future success of our organizations and our communities. How then, will leaders recognize success at leading from behind? I believe Robert K. Greenleaf the father of modern servant-leadership put it best when he said:
"The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?"When answering affirmatively to these questions, the effective leader will recognize they are no longer leading from behind the curve, but ahead of it.
NOTE: The above post was originally written in February for "The Bill George Challenge" on ExecuNet (www.ExecuNet.com). The challenge was to describe a leadership style that would adapt to a more particapatory managament practice, listing role models you would reference and how you would measure results. The challenge was placed in the framework of President Obama's call to action for everyone to take responsibility and participate in solving the challenges we face.
Labels: Inspiration, Management, Servant-Leadership, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Technology, Strategy, Web 2.0
Social Technology - Making Relationships More Personal Than Ever
As the personal computer replaced typewriters and the Internet evolved into common use, more critics began to panic that we, as a society, would lose our human touch. After all, just how personal can interaction be through computer screens? One wonders if they thought the same of the telephone. Even a man I greatly admire, James A. Autry, a thought leader on servant leadership and remarkably successful business man, devoted an entire section in one of his books to the theme that technology negatively impacts the ability for personal interaction (and servant leadership) to be successful. James and many of these critics were right in their observations given the state of technologies at that time - the late 80's and early 90's. Before social technology hit rev 2.0, everything was static, there was limited conversation and nobody saw the Internet as a place for friends to connect. Instead, you had a mess of static webpages. These early websites closest thing to a personal touch was a bunch of personal data that was broadcast to anyone at all. The problem was, only a select network of individuals wanted to read these individual's broadcasts but there was no easily defined audience or targeting mechanism. That was then, this is now.Then
Before Social Technology evolved into common place, in times that predate digital social networks, we had direct personal relationships based primarily on physical interactions. Those you knew living close to you, working in your office or family that visited semi-regularly were all in the know about your life's events. Even your closest friends from high school or college - the select few who kept you updated in Christmas letters or shared their updated contact information with each subsequent move. These individuals all provided "warm fuzzies" when you heard an update every couple of months.
If there were major life events, such as weddings, funerals or even the occasional reunion, you would even travel far to see those closest to you. You'd reconnect briefly, be amazed at how much had changed over the years and regret that you had not stayed in "closer contact". You'd promise to "do better this time" and maybe you would, for a couple of months at least, before the status quo returned and you'd meet up again at the next major life event....
And so it went for most of us. Sure, there were exceptions, those who were friends for life, those that didn't move far from home and made sure to visit everyone when they returned to visit, perhaps even the occasional high school "clique" that never ended. But as a whole, I suspect most of us experienced something like the above - only maintaining even semi-regular contact with a very small subset of friends and colleagues. However, modern evolutions in social technology have changed all this and flipped the coin completely. We now have the opportunity, through the technical empowerment of social technology, to make and maintain our relationships on a more personal level than ever before.
Now
It is easier than ever to stay connected or reconnect with friends and colleagues. A quick Google of someone's name is likely to identify a Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Ning, Naymz or similar networking reference. Physical vicinity is almost irrelevant. When you meet at the life event, you exchange your preferred profile space, go home, link up and now you're getting daily one-liner updates from Twitter or a similar service. You suddenly realize that their child is the same age as yours or slightly ahead and, trusting them from the common bonds of your youth, may rely on them for advice. How did they get that thumb-sucking under control?
Perhaps you discover that your old college roommate went back for his law degree. As luck would have it, you needed someone to go over that new contract before you sign. Again, the common bond of trust is pre-existing and new business is drawn up with old friends. In the end, it becomes easier and easier to make ties with your personal life and professional roles. For some this may not be what they seek. Many people prefer a work-life balance, vs. a work-life alignment. But even if for purely personal reasons, the daily status updates, photo sharing and routine communication with friends becomes more simplistic and readily accessible.
Still Room For Improvement
Of course, social technology solutions are still far from perfect. Many of the social technology services are awkward on mobile devices. The proliferation of these technologies is still relatively limited and standards have not yet matured. In fact, the lack of connectivity for a majority of mobile devices or even decent user interfaces for many of those that are connected, limit the adoption rate of mobile social technology. Meanwhile, the elders of our society, the age group most unlikely to adopt new technologies, remain virtually untouched by social technology. However, as we mature as a society and more youth become adults and adults become elders, all familiar with these systems and solutions, the adoption rate will naturally expand accordingly. Finally, there remains too many competitors and redundant solutions. As competitors battle for market share (user base) and systems settle into niches, these standards will pan out as they do for all technologies. Before long, all these roadblocks will become speed bumps and social technology adoption and proliferation will complete.
How Do We, As Technology Leaders, Respond?
Great, so we recognize that social technology is making relationships more personal than ever before. We understand this brings a human touch back to the office that may have been lacking in the last decade. In fact, we may even see our friends and colleagues are more connected than ever. So what does that mean for you, as a technology leader? It means first and foremost that this is not a battle, it means that we need to leverage these resources ourselves and it means we need to align our business plans with the social technology present and future.
Not a Battle
How are you structuring your policies and security around social networking? Are you completely blocking Facebook and Myspace? What about LinkedIn and the more generally considered "professional sites"? How do you handle Ning, which consists of a mix of both personal and professionaly-focused networks? Sadly, the reality is there may be some increased security threats from these sites and so proper precautions should be taken. But if you think that your staff could only possibly use social networking and media sites for purely personal reasons, think again. Whether you immediately open up access to these resources for your employees or you plan for it in the future, only you can decide. One thing is certain though, social technology is not going away and it is an excellent resource for your employees - both personally and professionally. Consider shifting your policies from one of absolute opposition, to one of moderated temperance. Of course, excessive personal use that abuses corporate assets should always be addressed, but the line between personal and professional networking is a very gray one and difficult to define. Otherwise, employees that are completely blocked from such resources, intending to use it for professional networking purposes will feel stifled, lacking the tools they need to complete their job effectively and not empowered to perform their best.
Leverage These Resources Ourselves
Are you connected with social technology? How many friends do you have online? When was the last time you connected with your old colleagues? You know that position that you've been trying to fill for months? Having a solid network on LinkedIn, empowering you to query your most trusted advisers and former employees sure would be helpful. Imagine, with one message you could immediately ping most of your former colleagues and know immediately how any referrals you receive are connected to you.
Aligning Business Plans with Social Technology
Does the marketing plan at your company encompass how they plan to leverage social technology? If not, why not? Social Technology should be considered as regularly, if not more so, than print, television, email and web alone. Viral marketing is best and most cost effective online, something everyone wants to hear nowadays. Leveraging YouTube, product watch sites and email campaigns that don't stink of force-fed ads are all low cost solutions to their traditional counterparts. What about your hiring strategy? Be sure to know what the discussion boards say about you as a manager (check eBossWatch for example) and as an employer (what do the hiring site discussions say?). Are you polling your own network online for hiring? In every new major initiative, within your own department and beyond, consider how social technology can help (or even hurt, if not properly addressed) your plans.
Yes, not so long ago, the Internet was evil, out to destroy our society by disconnecting us from the human touch. As the underlying technology evolves, adoption rates grow and interfaces become more familiar though, it is clear that social technology solutions have made our relationships more personal than ever before. There remains opportunities for improvement, but the fears of the past are fading and the promise of the future for both personal and professional opportunities to connect with friends and colleagues is immense. As a technology leader in your organization, it is up to you to ensure your teams realize this wave and help make it work for you.
Labels: Collaboration, Friends, Management, Personnel, Servant-Leadership, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Technology, Viral Marketing, Web 2.0
Quick Benefits of Enterprise Social Networking
I recently had someone challenge the benefits of social networking for the enterprise, suggesting there was no real value for such technology in the workplace. I came up with a quick list and decided to post it here:Examples of benefits to social networking in the workplace include:
- Collaboration: The more your employees can find out about each other, the quicker they can share ideas. For example, if you have a large number of staff, there is a great potential for duplicating research efforts. Through digital networking, it will be easier for your staff to self-identify complimentary projects and align their efforts.
- Innovation: Your staff may have a great deal of common interests outside the office that could transfer into a profitable new line of business. For example, perhaps you produce electronics and an office club forms around bicycling. The result may be the greatest electronic innovation for cyclists in generations, produced by your company and not the competition.
- Resource Identification: Content Management systems are great, but what if your staff does not use the right search term? Identifying experts within your company can be much easier, quicker and more cost effective through networking tools than traditional, structured, data hierarchies.
- Stronger Community: As the famous Gallup Poll pointed out, employees with friends at work are much happier and more productive. Social networking will empower your staff self-identify individuals with similar interests, resulting in larger and stronger community within the workplace.
- Increased Communication: Industry experts have predicted that social networking is much like email or the web itself - another evolution in communication mediums. As a result, it is not a question of whether to adapt social networking, but when. Mechanisms like chat and forum discussions further empower your staff to communicate more effectively and in a manner that is easy to capture and compile.
Labels: Collaboration, Innovation, Social Networking, Web 2.0
Virtual Reality Creeps in with Wii Hacks
I should preface this one by stating it's interesting what one's mind thinks about when you are up for a 4 AM feeding with your newborn. However, I was sitting here staring at our Wii Balance Board during this particular feeding and remembered seeing some pretty fascinating hacks online.The Wii system itself is pretty interesting. The use of relatively simple technology that is only moderately evolved from the days of the original Nintendo's Duck Hunt emphasizes the ability of innovation in user interface to produce results as great as, or better than evolutions in graphics. But take that one step further and make these relatively simple technologies an open source platform for others to tweak and you have a plethora of opportunities for new Virtual Reality applications of inexpensive technologies.
Johnny Lee has shown how a nominal additional investment in hardware can produce a digital white board and highlights the benefits for educational institutions. He also shows how reversing the sensor bar and controller can produce a head tracking, VR helmet-like imitation. More recently, the Wii Balance Board has been hacked by guys in a German Artificial Intelligence lab and can be used to navigate Google Earth and virtual environments like World of Warcraft and Second Life. Who wouldn't love to surf, both physically and figuratively, over their city anyway?
It is fascinating how, like so many successful evolutions of technology, Virtual Reality is not hitting us overnight with some single leap in evolution like so many predicted. Instead, it is creeping in among us through the continuous evolution of innovative interface implementations.
For more material on this topic, check out YouTube Wii Hacks and / or the clips below. As a bonus, in Johnny's Lee's famous hack video below, he mentions how YouTube has really expedited the evolution of innovations like these. Roughly quoting Johnny, "In 5 months an idea has gone from experimentation on my desktop to a commercially available product."
Johnny Lee's Hack Video, including VR head sensor:
The Wii Balance Board Hacks from Germany:
Labels: Innovation, Open Source, Social Networking, Virtual Reality, Wii
Web 2.0: Where Do You Stand?
Business Week (BW) recently updated one of their hottest pieces from 2005. The article was on the impact of Blogs in the workplace. As a result, the June 2nd edition of BW highlighted the positive and negative impact of this evolution in communication on the workplace.The metrics painted an interesting picture:
- 25% of U.S. adults online read a blog once a month (Forrester cited)
- IBM's internal social network, "Beehive", has 30,000 employees on it
- Twitter estimates 1 Million users now
- Dell's service on Twitter has brought in $500k+, in new orders, in the last year
- Splogs (Spam Blogs) now account for 90% of all blog postings (though filters catch most)
- Technoratti now indexes 74 Million blogs (but only 5.2 Million are estimated as active)
- Best Buy's social staff site, "Blue Shirt Nation" has 20,000 participants, most exited staff remain users
- "Millions of us are now hanging out on the Internet with customers, befriending rivals, clicking through pictures of our boss at a barbecue or seeing what she is reading at the beach. It's as if the walls around our companies are vanishing and old org charts are lying on their sides"
- "This can be disturbing for top management who are losing control, at least in the traditional sense."
- "...companies that don't adapt are sure to get lots of (the downside)"
- "...we have developed top-down reflexes that are nearly Pavlovian. We have to reprogram ourselves."
- "(employees) may see what technologies their competitors are putting into alpha tests and get the buzz on new rounds of financing."
- "Work and leisure, colleague and rival; they all blend on these networks."
- "...wikis raze traditional hierarchies: An intern can amend the work of a senior engineer."
- "Managers have to make sure that quieter employees don't lose out."
Whatever happened to those companies that didn't put up a website anyway? Happy twittering.
Labels: Blog, IBM, Management, Social Networking, Strategy, Web 2.0
Team Building Across the World? No Problem.
I recently had the opportunity to participate in a study by the folks at IBM's Social Computing Group. I first met a member of their team (Jason Ellis) at Lotusphere 2008. There, I heard how the team used Second Life to create team building exercises. That was exciting, but it also felt a bit like, "just another cool use of virtual worlds". Still, I volunteered to help them in any future studies – and I am glad I did.
Today, our chosen team met to familiarize ourselves with the environment and try a simple game. The objective was not to begin "team building", yet, but to get us prepped for these exercises.
Shy of a few brief email exchanges with the coordinator of this event (Katie Bessiere), I had not met any of the team members before (Jason was not in this exercise). However, by the time we were done, I already had people I had never met before, providing me freebies (including a cool IBM T-shirt), suggesting hip places to check out in the world and offering advice on how to improve my SL experience. Within about 20 minutes, people were poking fun of each other (in a kind-hearted manner) and speaking like friends. So, I felt welcomed as a member of the group and registered everyone as friends in SL. Before we ended the event, several members from IBM were sharing knowledge on similar projects in the (admittedly gigantic) organization's research efforts. It was clear there was something to this concept of virtual worlds for team building and knowledge sharing.
Yet, as I mentioned earlier, we were only supposed to be preparing for the team building exercises yet to come. Perhaps that was the best part of all. None of this "felt" like team building or knowledge sharing. Unlike the "real world" (or "first life" as us hip SL'ers say), where you schedule the day for an off-site, dress in grunge clothes and march off to listen to (often) a stranger talk about how to build your team, we were doing something totally different. Our small group had gathered on relatively short notice, with virtually no extra effort (assuming you are already in SL) and were quickly chatting away, sharing stories and knowledge and yes, even team building.
There's definitely something to this. I can't wait to see what happens when we are actually building a team…
Labels: Second Life, Social Networking, Virtual Reality, Web 2.0
Mashups - Not Just Maps
It seems like the topic of Mashups is getting a lot of press again lately. Conceptually, it's nothing all that new and mashups have been around for several years. Wikipedia defines mashups as:... a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool; an example is the use of cartographic data from Google Maps to add location information to real-estate data from Craigslist, thereby creating a new and distinct web service that was not originally provided by either source."With IBM's announcement of the release of Lotus Mashups at Lotusphere in January, we have another example of how Web 2.0 and web-as-a-platform solutions are presenting solutions for the early adopting enterprises. Still, the majority of mashups today seem to focus on map overlays. This is where I liked IBM's positioning at Lotusphere - while they covered the mandatory examples of map overlays, they also really emphasized data-to-data and other non-(geographic)map mashups.
I took a quick look around for some of the more innovative and popular non-map mashups and here some that stood out:
- Love-o-Graph: Don't trust yourself, match.com or any other dating algorithms? Why not entrust the future of your love life to a mashup driven entirely off of your name and your prospective partner? I found the future for my wife and I is "open to interpretation".
- LivePlasma: A cool visual representation of connections between musicians, actors, films, books and so on from the Amazon API.
- Secret Prices: A really cool site that combines data including online coupons and rebates with sales sites and opinion data.
- Similarity Web: This site takes Amazon.com's "Customers Also Bought" logic and provides an impressive visualization of similar products.
- Google vs. Yahoo: With this mashup, you can compare the results of a search as reported by Google and Yahoo.
For more examples of mashups, check out Programmable Web. In particular, they have a somewhat dated article on increasing non-map mashups.
Labels: IBM, Social Networking, Web 2.0
