PERRY TIMMS: Social Media and People Development Professionals PRACTICE MAKES PURPOSE

Full transcript of speech given at the HR Directors Summit, Birmingham, February 2014

Social Media and HR

The world of consumer marketing and mass media has embraced social media and embraced it's instantaneous flow of information and its connectivity to people wherever they are about whatever they want. Work is catching up though, yet with caution and uncertainty. More and more enterprises are adopting social ways yet is this the domain of startups and technology entrepreneurs or can "establishment" organisations be challenged to also get "social"? Yes we can! This session will explore the WHY, the HOW and the WHAT HR and Learning professionals can focus on to capitalise on the social media revolution. Both inside and outside of their organisations to increase their success in hiring, engaging, skilling and deploying people. Social is here, social is about people, social can deliver greater inclusivity, innovation and differentiation. See how you can make that difference with practical and conceptual advice on how to get started.

Good morning and welcome - my thanks to you for choosing this session - there are others and so it is genuinely pleasing that you come to hear me and perhaps more so, this topic I will talk to you about. I will begin where I normally end - with a quote from the venerable pioneer in connected digital thinking - Don Tapscott. It's not an information age we are living in. It's an age of networked intelligence. I love the phrase for a number of reasons: 1. It gives me hope - that what we are creating digitally will result in better; swifter; smoother; sweeter. 2. That it takes the technology - and the awe and reverence we sometimes have for the device/software itself - and places the crucible of the impact squarely on us - people. An increase in intelligence through connectedness and accessibility to all. Very much akin to Nick Negroponte's teaching on technology to educate those in developing territories. And to Jane McGonigal and her work on gamified learning to enhance work and life. 3. And that focuses on the power of multiplicity. Not dilution; not "wood for the trees" but a resplendence in amplified voice, reason and impact. That to me is what social technologies is giving us. If we give it half a chance that is. And I

say social technologies wisely here, for again, it is not about the apps and the platforms but the posts and reasoning. Social technologies are about people. People communicating; conversing; contrasting with each other. People learning. So it was this fascination that led me on the path I am now on. For until 2009 I was a not a social technologies outlier I was an "outlooper". I had experimented with Friends Reunited and Facebook; intriguing but also time wasting. I was also an non-believer on e-learning. I had rough experiences with the false dawn prophecies around e-learning so whilst having a huge regard and a history for technology development (I was a Project Manager for several IT projects in central government services that actually worked) I wasn't convinced about online's power to learn. Seek information and answers sure, but deep, moving, chin-stroking learning? Not my experience to date. Then I got social. And my career path is now intertwined with social tools where once I was castigated for "wasting time on Twitter" I am now an advocate; consulting touchstone and advisor on social media. I am still firmly convinced, if not more convinced, about social media's power in learning. Yes it's used for hiring and yes it's used for marketing and promotion. It can - as we are seeing - also have a place for engagement but I'd like to start with some conundrums that I faced; how I dealt with them and what I learned from them which may just help you with your technology tasks ahead. 1. Find the cause. It's been said that "field of dreams" is not a way to build a social strategy. I do though, advocate that - as the title of this presentation states that practice makes purpose. When you find the reason you should adopt some social technologies, then the TRUE purpose for them only really comes out once you are using them in pursuit of that cause. So find the cause (we want to hire more dynamically and tap into hitherto uncharted markets for graduate candidates) and the practice with tools; materials; applications; timings; one person leading it or several dabbling and you will then create your purpose. Cause and purpose might sound the same but one if the catalytic ideology the other is the reason you do it everyday with energy, impact and success. I had a cause in learning. I had a marvellous, learning pro and engaged workforce who were - unfortunately a little obsessed with classroom only and wouldn't - just wouldn't embrace self-learning principles and definitely not online. Some were using social media out of work and reporting regular use and good connections from it; so we started playing. With Yammer and then eventually through building our own platform which was like an extended internally put together intranet. So we kept practicing and made the purpose - a platform which enabled us to create interest groups; wikified threads; and most importantly generate more learning.

2. Hold your nerve. Oh there are still people out there now who just don't get it and maybe won't ever. The very well known law of diffusion of innovation comes into play here. Yet those who don't get it can shout loudly; forcibly and cause doubts in others. The later adopters can be held back by others (often this might be needed) so you do have to hold fast to what you believe in. They will throw things in like "what's the ROI?" they will say things like "it's not real work" and they will accuse you of being trendy, faddist and shallow. Just like many new ventures. So this is where the practice AGAIN makes sense. Until people use these technologies and understand them THEY HAVE NO RIGHT to call them out in a negative sense. So unless and until they at least use the OODA loop you can ignore them. Unless theyre the CEO or FD or HRD critical in allowing you to do this - then there's other things you might need to do. Observe; Orient; Decide; Act. Used in fighter pilot training. See what's going on with your instruments and through your canopy; align yourself to what is going on around you; cloud cover etc; make a choice about what you're going to do and then act on it. Going around the loop once you've done the act - re-Observe; re-Orient etc. They may not need to be hands on to support or deny your cause/purpose - they can observe others doing things; they can orient themselves and their work/learning to it; make a decision about whether it's helpful and THEN act. Either to join in with others; step away and return to the argument but with observable facts and witnessed insight or accept it works for others and let go of the personal dislike. 3. It's all about impact Holding your nerve is one thing, being able to convince people of the successes and learning opportunities is another. This - for me - comes from stories and data in that order. Because social technologies are about people; the most convincing way to describe productive, positive impacts is through people-based stories of achievement. Try this: We have 409 users; 90 are new; 217 are active every day and post 11 times on average. 11 are from the Wider Senior Management team. 71 people liked the CEOs blog post. 39 articles were shared 110 times by users. The CEO is the most followed user closely followed by the Head of Internal Comms. 2 people connected in a social group. One was working on a project researching older people and isolation. Their contact in the social group spotted that in their profile; shared their research on older people from 4 months ago and a policy paper was put to the Board 3 months sooner than first planned.

These are real life examples - which one moves you more? The data IS important. When looking at 950 people and only 409 are on the platform and 217 everyday you might not be able to rely on it as THE comms channel for important news. So you use this data to issue comms in a conventional way to let people know what's on the social platform - what they are missing out on. After all, most social technologies start with an email feed in mind so your habits change to visit them more often and get the maximum benefit and screen time. 4. Think connectedly Having a social platform could mean you junk your intranet; stop sending out all team emails etc. Risky but forces people. Instead, link all your channels. So one leads to another and back again. It's the same with social tools; A blog; tweeted out; +1'd on Google+; a hashtag popped up in a Storify; featured in a web feed on a corporate website. The more people can stumble upon stuff, the more you're likely to not miss out. And this convinces people that social media doesn't mean constant scrutiny of your timeline and therefore a distraction from real work. And connected also means you need Friends. In Marketing; Comms; IT; Senior Managers who believe. They will help you get social right; proper and aligned. Dive in when you dive in; see what you see - whatever you are meant to see you will either through the time you dive in or your followers reposting something later after you missed it first time around, Share with others and if you know they will like it/find it useful @ / tag them in the post. 5. It's ALL about learning So this cause I had - classroom-hooked learners. How do I unhook them? Not because classrooms are bad - more because classrooms were less effective and very time consuming meaning we couldn't put more on for people and we were constantly chasing needs. We couldn't get ahead of the curve. We needed to - to bring more effective, efficient and expansive learning to stretch and develop our people. So we unleashed social technologies in a planned way Platforms; lifting the social media ban on external tools and generally wanted to up the ante on social use. I bought in 2 external connects of mine to deliver some Social Media 101 workshops - not just twitterology classes - why, where and how could social tech be used to improve what you do? Binary dictated our approach

100 skilled connectors; 1000 people = 10 people each to coach and mentor. As I left 400 had become nearer 800; useage was regular; internal comms were pushing less stories on the intranet and in emails and linking to the social platform to generate chatter. A wiki was developed for sharing big thinking and new ideas; staff suggestions were ported across to a wikified thread so crowd sourced and validated before implementation. Innovation; Inspiration; Interconnectedness. All created. TICK. There were still non-users; doubters; those who denied. E-learning was built and launched to (largely) universal acceptance and we turned a corner on people being more socialised in their learning; collaborative with their insight and connected in their innovation. So the lessons again (in tweet format) Find the cause; hold your nerve; know the impact; think connectedly; it's all about learning #justdoit

@perrytimms