Organizations Don't Tweet, People Do: A Manager's Guide to the Social Web

In "Organizations Don't Tweet, People Do," the author describes the huge potential of social media for big business and global institutions, and shows managers how to harness this potential. He explains how to develop a social media strategy, how to get the most out of it, no matter where you are in your career or the size of your organization, and how to stay safe in the new world.

So who's this book for? Well, as the subtitle suggests, it's written primarily for managers. Whether they're in charge of large corporations, charities, political parties or government institutions, or heading up teams within large organizations, the author says managers need to understand how social media works and how to use social tools to communicate with colleagues, clients, and competitors. So he covers internal social networks as well as public-facing ones – from company forums to Internet blogs to the multiple uses of Twitter – although we think he could have made a clearer distinction between the internal and external uses of these tools. If you're new to social media, you'll want to be sure you're targeting the right audience with appropriate content.

Even if you're in a junior role, there's plenty of information in this book for you. There are tips on how to use blogs and forums to increase your profile and make your voice heard within a corporation, as well as advice on what to do if your boss doesn't understand the social media revolution. The author also has some great insights into blogging. He explains the ethos behind it and the personal benefits that come from it in a way that'll make you want to "join the party", as he puts it. If you're already adept at social media, you won't find anything startling in this book, but if you have any doubts about how it fits into today's workplace, you'll find all the answers you need.

The author bases his writing on years of experience using the social web and incorporating it into businesses and institutions. As Director of Knowledge Management at the BBC, he played a key role in getting the British broadcaster to use social media in the 1990s, creating online forums, blogs, and collaborative networks of employees and customers that grew to twenty five thousand members.

He went freelance in 2006 and has helped organizations like NATO and the World Bank and corporations including Volvo and Nokia to understand the Web and use social media to become more effective. He also practices what he preaches: he's been blogging for years and has more than six thousand seven hundred followers on Twitter.

So keep listening to hear about the benefits of blogging, why collaboration is the way forward when it comes to writing social media strategies or rulebooks, and how online forums can help solve problems at work you never knew you had.

"Organizations Don't Tweet, People Do" is written in bite-sized chunks: 45 short chapters with a summary in bullet points at the end of each. This style fits well with the subject matter. After all, tweets are limited to 140 characters and blogs are best when concise.

This structure also means it's easy to dip in and out of the book. Readers can jump to sections that interest them instead of plowing all the way through. In fact, because of the stand-alone nature of each chapter, you'll come across a lot of repetition if you do read it cover to cover. That's worth bearing in mind as it can be frustrating.

There's also very little help on using the technology. The title may mention tweeting but it won't teach you how to use Twitter or any of the blogging tools out there. If you're looking for a "How To" manual, this book isn't it. The author's more interested in convincing people why they should blog or tweet rather than teaching them how to sign up to Twitter or which blogging platform to choose.

So let's look at some of his arguments, beginning with blogs. Millions of people, from housewives to published authors, have taken to the blogosphere with their online diaries about life, love, politics, or whatever they care to write about. Some bare their souls while others publicize their strident views.

But how does blogging fit into business?

The author says sharing your thoughts online makes you more self-aware and reflective, and it gives you the space to discover yourself. If you blog over a long period of time, you get to watch yourself change, develop, and react to different situations. You also get to see how others react to you.

The author says an absence of self-awareness at the top of the corporate or institutional ladder explains much of the dysfunctional behavior that goes on behind closed doors – like bullying or aggressiveness. But move interactions between bosses and employees into a public, virtual forum and there's nothing to hide behind.

As a manager or CEO, being open about mistakes and failings online and being willing to take feedback – negative and positive – can help improve relationships at work and earn the respect of colleagues. There's a lot to be gained from sharing your human side.

As an employee, you can track your progress with your online diary, noting the challenges you faced at work, how you resolved them, and what you learned from them. You can then show your blog to your manager at your annual review rather than trying to remember the year's highlights and lowlights. Blogs can also help you get noticed. You may feel overlooked at work but if you can show what you know on your own blog and get a following, your manager will want to know who you are.

You can also use blogs to link to what others are saying about your company or a new product, to talk about your competitors, and to defend your business's reputation in the face of negative feedback.

We think the author makes a compelling case for the benefits of blogging at all levels of an organization and we imagine his writing will win over some skeptics. But the absence of a balancing view is an omission. It's clear that making private thoughts public can be risky, and it won't be appropriate for all organizations.

There's also the issue of resources. Is it really better for employees to spend their time blogging, rather than focusing on their core tasks? The author argues the upsides of blogging outweigh any potential downsides, but he skates over those downsides and we think the lack of objectivity here weakens the author's case.

Let's now take a closer look at wikis. Most people will have heard of Wikipedia, the free, web-based collaborative encyclopedia with articles written and edited by volunteers from around the world. You can use a similar concept in the workplace.

Traditionally, strategizing has been the domain of a select group of people at the top of a corporation or organization, sometimes with the help of highly paid external consultants. Once a strategy is agreed, it's communicated to those further down the hierarchy with little room for discussion.

But how many of these strategy documents sit gathering dust or are out of date by the time they're published? In today's fast-moving marketplace, businesses face new challenges every day and strategies must adapt to meet them.

So why not get people at all levels of your organization involved in writing the strategy and allow them to update it as things change?

This is where the wiki comes in. You can turn strategizing into a collaborative process by putting a draft document online and allowing everyone to comment on it or add to it. This way, the members of your organization who are going to have to carry the strategy forward can have their voices heard. This is particularly relevant when writing a social media strategy. You'll want employees who are familiar with social media tools to have their say and, given the pace of technological change, you'll want to be able to adapt your strategy as you go along.

In a separate chapter, the author suggests adopting a similar approach when coming up with rules or guidelines for using social media at work. Hard and fast rules, dictated from above, can quickly dampen enthusiasm about new ways of working. Those who write the rules often set out with the worst-case scenario in mind instead of trusting users to act responsibly.

Getting everyone involved in writing guidelines for using social media is the best way forward, the author says. And he's speaking from experience. When the BBC drew up its social media guidelines, the author and his team asked the 400 people in the organization who admitted to having a blog what they thought the guidelines should include. The author then produced a draft document, put it on a wiki, and asked the bloggers to alter it until they were happy with it.

But the author recognizes not all organizations are going to be comfortable with this way of working and things aren't going to change overnight. Some managers will be reluctant to do away with expensive consultants and hand over their strategy documents to an online community of employees. And some are going to have very fixed ideas about the use of social media at work. He suggests that you start small, experimenting with wikis for less vital parts of the organization and using them alongside more traditional work practices. If they're successful, you can expand their use.

This theory of starting small also applies to the tools you roll out. Instead of spending vast sums of money on new technology platforms, start with inexpensive software and a ‘trial and error' mindset. The author calls this approach ‘unleashing Trojan mice', borrowing the metaphor from British business consultant Peter Fryer. Unlike the large, lumbering Trojan horse, Trojan mice are small, fast, and run around with no clear destination. But they know where to find food. In other words, launch a series of low-cost initiatives, sit back and see where they take you.

The author adopted this incremental approach at the BBC, starting out with cheap forum software and showing it to small groups of people. Six years later, twenty five thousand employees were using it.

Let's look at an example of an in-house forum in action. Managers may be wary of allowing employees around the globe to chat openly online about their problems at work or their gripes about corporate policy. But the author says the positives outweigh the negatives. You might get a few rogue members who join a forum to cause trouble or encourage dissent but generally internal forums bring many benefits.

The author recalls a forum when a member asked about the company's policy on using your own car for business. Half a dozen people joined in, each with different answers. Now, a manager might worry that employees are misinforming each other but the forum thread was simply showing that nobody was clear about the policy. Someone then linked to the HR document that explained the company's policy, which meant everyone found out that a policy actually existed and what it said, without having to trawl the intranet for hours looking for it.

But this wasn't the end of the story. A few others wrote back saying their side of the business interpreted the policy differently and explained why the official guidelines weren't relevant to them. At this point, you might imagine HR was wishing the thread was never started. First there was misinformation, and now people were openly flouting the policy. But the experience was actually positive all round. HR learned their policy didn't apply to everyone and specific guidelines should be drawn up for different parts of the organization, so employees wouldn't have to interpret the rules.

We also like the author's example of the power of Twitter. He describes how he was about to do a webinar from home to a room full of students at a US university. But with a few minutes to go, he couldn't get the webinar software to connect with his laptop's camera. He tried every help tool he could find with no luck.
Realizing one of his thousands of Twitter followers must have used this technology before, he tweeted his dilemma. He got three answers back in seconds, changed the relevant settings, and the camera started working. He makes the point that having large networks of people using the same social tools who are willing to come to your rescue is just as valuable in global corporations.

As these examples suggest, the author is both an optimist and an evangelist when it comes to social media. He sounds a few notes of caution but the balance is heavily skewed in favor of the positives. We'd have preferred a few more case studies of where things went wrong and some more tips on how to protect your business and your employees from the dangers of the social web.

We'd also have liked some more examples from other companies and organizations. He mentions a few obvious ones, such as Google, but we think there was room for more, to liven up the text. He makes up for this by referring to his BBC experience throughout, which provides a consistent thread and a constant reminder of his experience in this field.

"Organizations Don't Tweet, People Do" by Euan Semple is published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.