In my opinion, this is a good thing. Social technologies enable an open way of working and living grounded on the emerging tenants of cocreation, collaboration and sharing throughout our social graph. With this comes individual and institutional responsibility in developing our understanding and raising awareness of both the opportunities and implications of social technologies in the way we work and the technical and social skills necessary to participate. But how are we developing digital literacies in our institutions? Not just in our students, but also in our staff – be it faculty, administrative, support or ancillary. How can we when our Universities are such large complex organizations?

One consideration. Change how we think about organisational communications.

The traditional approach to organizational communications in most organisations, especially large ones such as universities, is grounded in a mindset of the private face of an organisation (i.e., internal communications and activities) controlled by the few (i.e., external and public relations) in the conduct and delivery of external facing activities (i.e., press releases, events, spoke people, corporate web communications). The aim: To build a corporate professional brand image of the organisation. This approach assumes we have an inside [internal] and an outside [external] face of an organization. However the fact of the matter is, we live and work in invisible social networks, not just the buildings used to house us and our belongings. I often wonder if the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ perspectives of organisational communications is more a factor of the space we reside in than the social networks we live in.

The lived experience of an organisation is experienced and shared by many. And today it is being experienced, recorded, mashed-up and shared on a public stage by anyone and potentially everyone throughout our digital social graph. Developments in social technologies are enabling our lived working and learning experiences to be co-created and shared by those who experience it, not just by those who use to control the media or technology channels (“the few”). Those who have experience of an organisation, be it the people, the activities that define the workplace or the artefacts these activities produce, these people are its member communities. The community who work and live associated with it or have some vested interest in it. The activity: To cocreate and share the lived experience of working within the organisation and the social networks through which we become connected.

This social way of working (and living) is often distanced and independent of the traditional personnel roles that traditionally have managed the organizations brand image and corporate message [external communications and public relations]. Today, what is increasingly important is not just the organisations brand image, but an organizations digital social capital. Digital social capital is the lived identities of its people, their practices, connections and their ways of working, captured and shared through and with social technologies. It is this digital social capital that shows not only the heart of the organisation (it’s people), but also it’s ways of working, be they open or closed, innovative or conservative, traditional or contemporary.

So how do we manage and control all this? How does one charged with the role of communications director, marketing manager or senior executive on the board, especially of a large organization, take charge and manage all of this digital social activity. The simple answer is, we don’t! We can’t! So why try?

A second consideration. Inform and inspire social ways of working across the organisation!

We need to support and grow it by being part of it not master of it. To inform the digital social activities in our organizations through learning and communication initiatives outlined by a social way of working strategy that is championed by individuals and groups in our departments, schools, and across our universities. Championed bottom-up by change agents or innovators who get it and top-down by budget holders and connectors who value it. We don’t all have to do it, but we do all have to value it.

To achieve this there are three core needs I believe for any organisation – small, medium or large to consider:

1. A need to focus on people and practices: What many organizations lack is an understanding of the social ways we/they work. We focus instead on on the technology, and the output, but technologies come and go. With a technology focus we miss the bigger picture of the cultural and learning changes these technologies have and how people using them inspire how we work, learn and live differently. Social technologies (supported not constrained by our governance and technological infrastructure) can support productive and positive social ways of working and learning at both an individual and collective level.
2. A need to learn through example and lead by discussion: It is imperative for especially large organizations to inspire a learning culture in departments, schools and groups that empower individual responsibility in the social ways we work. This is a preferred approach instead of focusing resources mainly on corporate IT governance, technologies and written communications policy and educating the few (i.e., a social media manager). Large organizations are unfortunately conditioned to ‘lead by policy’ not by ‘discussion’ nor to ‘learn through examples’. We attempt to build walled gardens in the form of policies, procedures and technological infrastructure, in fear of ‘what someone might do, say or share’ or ‘to protect our intellectual assets.’ Sometimes in some learning situations a walled garden is good, but not if it stops learning taking place. We learn more through example and discussion, and gain more through sharing what we learn, than we do by writing policy.
3. A need to change our mindset about who is in control: Any organization IS an open organisation. For example, in Higher Education, the members of our communities (i.e., staff, students, funders, collaborators, partners) flow between and through differing identities (personal, private, professional, public) and differing social networks (digital and human) using many and varied social technologies by which to communicate, share and co-create their lived experience of the organization. In this, our community members build not only their personal/professional digital identities, but also the digital social capital that is the organization. Control rests with the individual (“when they press upload, send or enter”) and the organic collective these entries compile. The organisation is therefore a social construction of the digital artefacts the community co-create, over time, place and through differing experiences.

In summary, most organisations including those in Higher Education are inspiring, creative and intellectual communities to work and be part of. The problem lies not in the technologies we commission, the structures we build or the policies we write. The difficulty lies in how we consider, support and inspire learning around the social ways we work. Be it higher education, the arts or the car dealer down the road, social technologies have changed the way we work. Now we need to change the way we think and the way we learn.

Smiles

Kelly

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My coauthor, Professor Mark Uncles (UNSW), and I have for a long time been interested in how we consider and regard usage of digital media, wherein penetration, access, usage and engagement strongly differ and also have parallels. We have also been interested in how those with and without website design experience differ in their perceptions of what is and isn’t digital media participation and what is of value in its consideration. We developed a paper exploring these issues. In this we consider how the professional context within which we work, shapes and guides our understanding of digital media participation and our own participation. This lends insight to the importance of decision making teams drawing from differing backgrounds in digital decision making – that is, creatives, digital designers, marketers/communications personnel, community members/audiences and other stakeholders. We have written a paper on the subject, that is currently in-review. The abstract is provided below.

The Complexities of Digital Participation: Abstract

Digital media participation is central to the process of marketing communications planning and digital media management. In this paper we discuss the characteristics and dimensions of digital media participation, differentiate it from digital media penetration and as an example, specifically examine the influence of two user characteristics on digital web participation. In this example, we examine the effect that user web site design experience and perceptions of web usability has on digital web participation. Hypotheses are tested on two web user segments: web users with (n=1177) and without (n=900) web site design experience. Findings show that perceptions of web usability has a significant impact on digital web participation, but these effects vary depending on: 1) how digital web participation is defined and measured; and 2) if a user has or has not got past web site design experience. The findings help in our understanding of the complexity of digital media participation and the usage-context within which it is socially constructed. The characteristics and dimensions discussed in this paper are important bases for understanding users across differing categories of digital media participation and differing digital media contexts.

Source: Page, K. L. and Uncles, M. D. (Under Review). The Complexities of Digital Media Participation.

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In this post, we reflect on something that perhaps we should all reflect on: What do the terms ‘friends’, ‘friendship’ and the action ‘being friendly’ means to us, others and in our social worlds! An important reflection, especially before we add people to our FB profile; share or tag photos with/of them; email, text, call or hang out with them or better yet … invite them to be part of our world! It’s funny, because these terms are not new, they are not words we are unfamiliar with. However their meaning is so ever fluid today, more than ever before … as our digital space evolves, as it merges more with our non-digital world as we transverse spaces, so does the language and narrative we use to think and discuss ‘friends’!

If someone ‘adds’ you on Facebook, are they really your friend? What are the elements that we association with being a friend and why add someone, especially someone we might not really know? Is this changing what we mean by the term ‘friend’ or just changing how we interact with people who ‘could’ be our friends! So let’s espouse …

Having Friends – Being Friendly – Developing Friendships!

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term ‘friend’ as:

1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement

In history … A friend is a lover, literally. The relationship between Latin amcus “friend” and am “I love” is clear, as is the relationship between Greek philos “friend” and phile “I love.” In English, though, we have to go back a millennium before we see the verb related to friend. At that time, frond, the Old English word for “friend,” was simply the present participle of the verb fron, “to love.” The Germanic root behind this verb is *fr-, which meant “to like, love, be friendly to.” Closely linked to these concepts is that of “peace,” and in fact Germanic made a noun from this root, *frithu-, meaning exactly that. Ultimately descended from this noun are the personal names Frederick, “peaceful ruler,” and Siegfried, “victory peace.” The root also shows up in the name of the Germanic deity Frigg, the goddess of love, who lives on today in the word Friday, “day of Frigg,” from an ancient translation of Latin Veneris dis, “day of Venus.”

So, from the above we can see characteristics and terms such as: “to know, knowledge of, to like, trust, love, is allied to, supportive of, sympathize with, peaceful, friendly to, lover of, someone I love” … a number for wonderful, deep and emotive words that create a psychological boundary around what is a ‘friend’ is, ‘how friends behave’ and ‘our relationship with them’…

But what about in digital social networks, such as on Facebook, where the term ‘friend’ is used alot? Blurring the lines between connectivity and deep emotive social bonds. Are we connecting to ‘have friends’; ‘develop friendships‘ or are we just ‘being friendly‘ by adding people we have just met, chatted to, shared an experience and thought/hope they might become part of intimate circle of people who are our currently our friends. People who we might work with, grew up with or have known forever – such as family … in this the term ‘friends‘ and the activity of ‘being friendly‘ is about developing social bonds. In this we evolve from weak ties to deeper stronger ties with people … developed based on our level and type of emotive connectedness with them – similar values, loves, hates, opinions … but at it’s core development of mutual trust, respect and … love!

Connectivity – Connections – Connectedness

So from this it is important to distinguish between a number of other terms cognisiant with and used to describe the digital media space … ‘having connectivity’, ‘adding connections’ and ‘developing connectedness’. The differential between these terms is about the extent or evolution from the technical bonds to the emotive social bonds between users of a system (i.e., nodes in a network) and the technical infrastructure that can and does connect them. In this sense,

• ‘having connectivity’ = is the ability and functionality of a digital system to ‘connect’ nodes in a networks – be it people, computers or data points … i.e., being connected to the Internet gives you connectivity!
• ‘add connections’ = is the number and quality of nodes that exist in a complex system – be it people, computers or data points’… i.e., being on Facebook and adding friends gives you connections!
• ‘developing connectedness’ = is the emotive social bonds between nodes in a network – and in this essence is more about human social bonds and social capital that you develop… i.e., engaging in dialogue and conversation with friends through Facebook gives you connectedness!

So in essence, ‘adding a friend’, ‘having friends‘, and ‘developing friendships’ are not one in the same – be it in an offline space such as at work or university or an online digital space such as Facebook. Connectivity through social networks most certainly might provide the digital opportunity for the latter to occur, however it is the deep rich social bonds and thus ‘connectedness’ between ‘friends’ in a network, that makes true, deep and lasting ‘friendships’ develop, grow and sustain … no matter if you are in an online or offline space …

So next time someone asks you to ‘Add’ them as a Facebook Friend, and thus you are giving them permission to see into the privacy of your world … ask yourself three questions:

1. ‘Are they really a friend?” [See the definition above!]
2. “Do you want to potentially build a friendship with them?”
3. OR “Are you just being friendly?”

Smiles

Kelly

P.s. “Family are the friends you grow up with; Friends the family your choose; and Strangers the friends you haven’t met yet” (Dr. Kelly Page, 2010).

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Me Tarzan – You Jane!

Can you imagine the impact on sales if we treated our customers like this? Well maybe in some ways we do, but our customers haven’t known any better! But that is changing, and changing quickly.

One of the biggest things we are seeing electronic technologies having an impact on in marketing is not just how we do marketing. Electronic technologies are changing the mindset behind how we view marketing, talk about marketing and the roles of who is involved in marketing.

Them & Us = Mass Marketing

Has marketing ever been a linear process? Do we as human beings actually interact with each other in a linear way? Now time is linear, and because we organise processes usually by time, many of our working processes are linear. But in fact we live and work in social networks.

If we think back to the agarian age, before the inception of mass machines of the industrial era, we lived and shared goods in social networks of close geographical proximity. Bartering and developing strong-tie bonds to facilitate the exchange of goods.

But as large scale machinery was introduced, enabling standardisation in production and broadcast media was invented to reach the mass audience with a single message, so too did the mindset of marketing involving the formalisation of linear marketing processes and strategies to market to the masses evolve.

Born was the concept of sales processes and mass strategic marketing. These are inherently linear one-way processes in which organisations (them) – be it marketers, sales teams, advertisers or account managers, develop strategies and programs to sell and advertise to segments of consumers, customers, buyers (us).

But inherently in mindset there is a divide, a physical and psyhcological divide between organisation and community. It’s a them & us mindset, in which the community is something marketed and sold to! They are not participatory, but passive.

Even the language – customer, consumer, user – denotes a psychological position in the mindsets of marketers. ‘You are inherently someone who responds, purchases, consumes, or buys on behalf of an entity’. You should feel happy I’ve identified you as a attractive segment I’m going to market to.

I can see the relationship to Tarzan and Jane now - Me provider – You Customer!

With the social web this mindset is evolving and tomorrow’s marketers especially, are seeing the world differently. They didn’t grow up in a time of mass mechanical machines but in one of social digital networks.

Me + We = Social Marketing

With recent developments in digital social web services – be it tools, technologies, channels, or platforms – we are starting to see changes in how marketing is viewed, spoken about and the role of people within it!

Marketing is far more social today than it ever has been. By social I don’t mean ‘socially responsible’, I mean as part of a wider social network or community, not apart or distant from it.

Marketing projects are increasingly organised less and less in silos – such as advertising, PR, sales, distribution – and more fragmentated involving cross-functional teams across social networks. We are recognising the need for very differing skills in collaboration – be it in IT, usability, system design.

Electronic tools, technologies and channels are the enactors in this evolution, facilitating the rise in the ‘I’ generation (me), where my role in the media, in the message, in the marketing process I as an individual can define.

These choices are not just up to marketers, but to customers, consumers, buyers, employees etc to choose their role and participation in the marketing process. We also don’t want to be seen as a segment or number, but a person!

As a result marketing is being forced to focus more on people (me) and the social network, the community they are part of (we) and listen and interact within this community. Not just sit outside it, viewing the community as something we can break up to target or reach.

So perhaps marketing is moving out of the jungle … evolving from a mindset of them & us to one of Me + We!

I wonder who amongst us in this profession will survive? As Charles Darwin once wrote:

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

« CASE Insights: Exploring Marketing’s Evolution Through Technology »

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