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I just read read a fantastic Esquire article about Robert Caro, author of the magisterial, multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. Caro, despite being a self-admitted “fast writer” doesn’t begin his writing until he is perfectly clear on his purpose:
“Caro knits together his fingers until he knows what his book is about. Once he is certain, he will write one or two paragraphs — he aims for one, but he usually writes two, a consistent Caro math — that capture his ambitions. Those two paragraphs will be his guide for as long as he’s working on the book. Whenever he feels lost, whenever he finds himself buried in his research or dropping the thread — over the course of ten years, a man can become a different man entirely — he can read those two paragraphs back to himself and find anchor again.”
This is a testament to the power of distilling your goals and ambitions into a crystalline, written statement of purpose – then sticking with it. Each one of these steps is critical; (1) getting clear on exactly what your purpose is in any endeavor, (2) committing that purpose succinctly to writing and (3) coming back to it often for direction. Caro’s books are enormous and their creation spans a decade on average but their production is guided by one or two paragraphs.
I have been meditating for some time on the power of seeking clarity before taking action. So often we are permitted to go forward with flabby, ill defined statements of purpose. We set strategic aims and then lose the patience to be guided by them. We end meetings with general agreements but no specific actions. Often we allow ourselves to pass off hackneyed phrases for “insights” that will drive our business.
Why?
Because achieving clarity of purpose is painstaking work. I think we lack the discipline to demand it before setting things in motion (I am often as guilty as the rest). Just as often we lack the permission. We are driven by timetables that thoroughly erase the time for contemplation as individuals and collaboration in groups. We are measured by daily deliverables summed up in bullet point. Caro is a welcome reminder of what we stand to gain by seeking clarity, being specific and sticking with it..
One problem that has caught my attention lately is what I would call “exceptionalism” – the belief held in a business unit, sector, or leader within an organization that their “case” or challenge (whatever it might be) requires its own unique solution. This makes a degree of sense. After all every situation and every person is, in the final analysis, exceptional. So every thinking human being can build a rational argument to support the notion that they require their own team, their own resources, their own agency, their own methodology, tools and on it goes. It is also not coincidental that a belief in exceptionalism is more often than not self-serving. Being exceptional allows one more access to budget and authority.
Indeed, there is a case to be made that business, as merely an extension of the pattern exhibited by all organic life, is trending towards increasing complexity and specialization. And specialization, by definition requires unique knowledge, talent and organizational structure. In my field it is clear that you need specialists (i.e. “exceptional” talent) for many initiatives you might undertake; for example search, mobile, ecommerce, privacy issues, social media and so on. No argument there. The problem is that exceptionalism tends to be the default setting within organizations; we begin by thinking we know more than others, that our problem is unique, that we have special needs.
Exceptionalism fractures an organization into silos that spend time on problems and challenges that, more often than not in my experience, are actually not exceptional – but shared. And this fracturing represents not only a waste of material resources through duplicated effort but more importantly the erosion of a culture of collaboration, shared language and meaning. The latter is far more difficult to repair once broken and far more costly in the long-run. And no coincidence, exceptionalism breeds more exceptionalism and begins to look like a form of pathology.
So what if we switched our default setting? What if we began, not with an answer (“I am dealing with an exceptional problem that requires an exceptional solution”) but with a question (“what does this have in common with the challenges faced by the rest of the organization?” ”who else is working on this problem?” ”who else knows about this?”).
Changing the default setting; from exceptionalism to what I would term Common Cause shifts your starting point:
From To
Skepticism Trust
Ownership Partnership
I know best We know better
Distilled into its simplest form of action this is about beginning any inquiry by seeking common cause. Easier said than done, and certainly a trait that must be hardwired into the culture of an organization. That said, Common Cause cultures will dominate “Exceptional” ones.
Why?
Digital transformation is steadily eroding the competitive benefits conferred by size. It flattens the field of play by allowing online access to a global market and a host of plug-and-play services ( financial systems, shipping and logistics, on-demand manufacturing and so on) that were once the privilege of large, heavily capitalized companies. In this type of a world the massive drag caused by exceptionalism can slow innovation and increase cost – a deadly combination. So the benefits of size will be outpaced by the virtues of collaboration and common cause.
Image via Wikipedia
Enter the Sony Walkman – a convenient, portable way to experience music. Sure it required cassette tapes and a corresponding drop in fidelity but within a few years the market share of cassette tapes exceeded vinyl. People wanted to take their music with them – and the loss of quality was a small price to pay for the convenience of songs in your pocket.
I was reminded of this story just a few short weeks ago as I sat in a posh advertsing office in Milan drinking espresso from a vending machine… Sadly the culture that brought you peerless coffee and never deigned to offer a to-go cup had given way to the quick hit convenience of push-button caffeine delivered by an automaton.
If I didn’t need that caffeine so badly it would have been heartbreaking… As it was, I barely gave it a moment’s thought.
It did make me wonder how often we fool ourselves that the game we are in (whatever that business endeavor might be) is about quality while ignoring the competitor waiting to eat our lunch with convenience.
“The Post has expanded its Web presence by trying to meld what was great about the old Post with new traffic-baiting tricks of online start-ups — creating new, high-minded blogs like Ezra Klein’s “Wonkblog,” along with “Celebritology 2.0” where news about the Kardashian sisters and Justin Bieber can be found. That has many inside the paper starting to wonder if online growth has come at too high a cost.”
Too high a cost? Journalism has never paid for itself. It has always been a subsidized activity. In the past it was advertising and classifieds and there were large departments exclusively focused on the commercial enterprise of selling the real estate that came with paper. The Internet has destroyed the classifieds and nearly destroyed its print advertising base. In short, the Internet has removed the subsidies that paid for journalism. The Washington Post was using Kaplan (another business line) to fund its money-losing paper until Kaplan ran into financial difficulty. The question that anyone inside the news business should be asking is “what is the cost of NOT looking for new models to subsidize journalism?”
via The Washington Post, Recast for a Digital Future – NYTimes.com.
But Timeline feels a jumbled mess requiring a lot of deciphering and it raises an interesting question: How will Facebook retain the ease of use that facilitated its rise to dominance while continually adding functionality needed to drive its end-game? What end game? Facebook functionality generally needs to deliver on one or more of the following:
The concept of Timeline: a more editable archive of your digital life - makes great sense. It promises to meet both of the above goals. The issue lies in keeping the platform friendly for users. And this brings me to the concept of affordances. Affordance is a term well known in the gaming industry. A brief definition-(from Wikipedia), affordances denote “a quality of an object, or an environment, which allows an individual to perform an action. For example, a knob affords twisting, and perhaps pushing, while a cord affords pulling” Affordances often are determined by the amount of past experience someone brings to a present task… So in gaming for example, most people have past experience operating a joystick with a few buttons placed nearby (for firing or getting into hyperspace etc.). As you develop your game you can add new features – but you need to be careful not to outpace the affordances of your users or alienate any new users that might want to try your game. Well developed games often enter what might be called an end-of-life feature trap: they become so feature rich that people who have not played the game religiously over years do not have the necessary affordances to really get into the game. New users are shut out. And older users become a small, hardened group incapable of supporting future product development. SecondLife – the much touted 3D “metaverse” never fully took flight because, despite amazing growth numbers (new people registering) the affordances were just too high for them to stay. Learning how to navigate with your avatar in 3D space took a lot of time. Time that most people didn’t have. So people left – and the platform shrank back into a community of hardcore users, revolving CEOs and business plans trying to get back to the glory days. Apple’s genius has been to demand that even a new experience (a phone entirely operated by touchscreen) be completely inline with already-existing affordances (gestures like swiping, pinching etc.). Facebook was wonderful because it kept things simple and highly social. Even new feature additions meant to drive stickiness or increase user data never made the interface cluttered. There was never a compromise of user experience for the sake of Facebook’s end game. Timeline, in my opinion, seems to be one of the first features to violate this balance. I don’t think Timeline will jeopardize Facebook growth at all. It is in a relatively remote corner of the Facebook architecture (the user profile which no one visits a whole lot anyway) but it is a first step I have seen towards the feature trap.
PIPA and SOPA Co-Sponsors Abandon Bills.
First, rewards and discounts may already be a part of how customers have been trained to “Like” a page or follow a brand. In other words, ”reasons” as a data point says more about how brands have engaged on Facebook and Twitter and are not an insight into what people actually need/want from a brand. Second, on Facebook, rewards/discounts are often constructed to force a like in return for the offer – which therefore totally skews the figures: ”the reason I followed this brand was because I had to in order to get the 10% off coupon”
Finally, not every brand is in a situation where discounts/promotions make any sense. Consider that discounts and rewards may be unsuitable if you run a luxury brand, or that if your brand promise is based on flawless customer service you may choose to focus on this customer need (or perhaps as a brand your reputation for poor customer service needs to be repaired). If you are trying to build a community of price-insensitive enthusiasts (usually a bit older and well-heeled) then running discounts may appeal to the wrong type of people and will drive down the affinity (and EdgeRank) of your group (I have lived through this scenario personally). The point is – statistics on what fan’s want can be misleading and aren’t the only question to ask when developing an approach on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. In the end you should develop an approach that satisfies identified needs of your community. Nice infographics with catchy data be damned.
http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2011/06/29/what-makes-people-follow-brands/?view=socialstudies
This post is part of an ongoing series taken from my eBook on Social Media Architecture; a Field Guide to Unifying your Social Media Presence. You can download the entire book here.
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The Internet has revealed that there is no limit to the number of communities to be found online. For every obscure passion, hobby or interest there is a thriving online community. Yet while communities vary, needs do not. There are a finite number of need states that exist within any community. I will put forward and define five here. Feel free to disagree. Put together your own list, get agreement in your organization and then stick with it. The point is to realize that communities have needs, and organizations should prioritize which of them they will serve. If you look at nearly any successful social media presence out there, it has a clear focus. Whether that is Dell’s discount and promotional use of Twitter, Maria Sharpova’s (@brainpicker) use of Twitter as a source of constant inspiration, Best Buy’s focus on Customer Support using Twitter (Twelpforce) or Red Bull’s use of Facebook for delivering entertainment.
The Five Need States:
To be Inspired, Entertained
At its most basic, people still want to be entertained. There is no end to the possibilities in this arena of creating entertainment or inspirational content that connects to your brand and an audience – from nutrition to farming, to science, green living, technology, personal beauty, social justice, financial well being and on and on. TED is a great example of a community that is brought together around “big ideas” and the future. Philips (disclosure: client) has used Youku (Chinese equivalent of YouTube) to deliver a series where products and storyline are intertwined to provide entertainment value to consumers.
To Earn Status
Recognition and reputation within a community is a great glue to nurture power-users or brand advocates. Much of the “gamification” concepts that are currently in vogue trade off of this notion, where the previously intangible assets of reputation are formalized and expressed through badges (“top poster” etc.) and ranking systems. Making this visible encourages participation by conferring status.
To Learn
Communities are great places to find information you can’t get elsewhere. The value in finding information from social media is that it comes from peers. Exemplars in this category include The Carphone Warehouse, which uses its YouTube channel, “Eye Openers” to deliver tech tips.
To Get Support
Many of those coming to a community are seeking answers to basic questions, “should I buy a BMW?” “is this product reliable?” “how do I fix this problem?” AT&T (disclosure: an FH client) for example has created rich integration with customer support directly from its Facebook page.
To be Rewarded
Especially when a community surrounds a product or product line customers appreciate getting discounts, promotions or being rewarded for their loyalty. Product manufacturers often find this the simplest path to take by providing coupons, sweepstakes and other promotions to their fans. Product brands tend to head down the rewards path. Nokia (disclosure: client) frequently runs interesting programs to reward its users and reinforce perception of the brand as an object of style and fashion.
When a brand launches a “community” without clearly addressing the unique qualities of the community and without understanding need states they will focus on, you can see the trouble right away. What is the consistent source of conversation? Should a community be devoted to advancing thought leadership (to be inspired/entertained), giving discounts on products (to be rewarded) or providing customer care (to get support)?
The decision you reach should take into account both your brand (what you say you stand for) and your reputation (how the public actually sees you). For instance, a company whose brand is built upon innovation might wish to focus on providing inspiring content. If that same brand has a reputation for poor customer service, however, then focusing on support might make more sense. The point here is to balance what say you stand for (your brand) versus how you are actually perceived (your reputation). Choosing your focus does not mean that you should not have an operational capacity to provide customer support. If social media has taught the corporate world anything, it is that the terms of the conversation are no longer under their control. Even if you wish to focus on entertainment/inspiration – be sure to have a means to handle service/support issues.
Image via Wikipedia
While traditional marketing, communications, R&D and the like revolve around the notion of “audiences,” social media is centered on communities. Radically compressed here, the difference is that the value derived from audiences tends to be one-dimensional; their shared interest makes them amenable to messaging, products and services that they consume.
Communities, by contrast generate value by increasing the connectedness of their members with one another.
Communities benefit from network effects, that is the larger they are, the more value they create (This in contrast to audiences, whose size is not a measure of value-creation but of conversion-to-sale potential). Therefore it is in your interest to nurture fewer, larger communities rather than the fragmentation we see being created with the social media mystery house.
This post is part of an ongoing series taken from my eBook on Social Media Architecture; a Field Guide to Unifying your Social Media Presence. You can download the entire book here
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The proliferation of the social media mystery house is fracturing people with potential like interest into dozens of smaller social properties. In order to bring your social media footprint under some semblance of control an organization must share a common definition of what constitutes a community – and more specifically what defines a “unique” community. It is only through acknowledging what is unique that an organization can come to terms with the limits of how many true communities with which they should engage.
At the risk of stating the obvious, a community is not unique by virtue of the fact that you wish to market to them. They are unique through sharing common interests and a desire for connection. This last part, the desire for connection, is crucial because it is what distinguishes an “audience” from a community. Communities form, stick together and generate value based on this desire for connectedness. They often develop shared cultural norms regarding behavior and vernacular that allows them to cohere and identify fellow community members or exclude those that do not belong.
Gaining shared agreement on what constitutes a unique community is crucial because communities benefit from network effects; that is, the larger a community is, the more value that the community provides to its own members.
Finally, getting liftoff for new communities takes more energy than maintaining (or tapping into) an already existing, healthy community. If you can reduce the number of communities you serve to a few, larger entities, the more effective you will be.
It is best to define uniqueness in a workshop setting. This builds agreements within the group and the will to move forward in consolidating like-communities. However, in my experience there are only four possible criteria that can define uniqueness within a community:
1. A common passion: describes a practice that brings out personal devotion – stamp collectors, watch enthusiasts, pre-code cinema buffs and on and on. Common passion can also revolve around the veneration of a product – most often luxury goods. Rolex, BMW, Gucci, and Apple are examples of this category where the product serves as a proxy for our identity. This, however, is the exception. Many companies make the mistake of assuming a natural community revolves around a passion for their product. There may indeed be an audience for your product but not necessarily a community.
2. A shared goal: A shared goal is a powerful stimulus for community. “I am a mother responsible for the well-being of my family.” “I am a bargain shopper and the deals I find are a badge of honor.” The connections between these groups is what creates energy and value.
3. Language: obviously human beings use language to communicate. Our community for bargain hunters in English can’t likely extend to speakers of Urdu. For this, you would need to create a separate community.
4. Locality or culture: Some communities are predicated upon being local. It is interesting to see The Quantified Self, a community for people interested in self-tracking and monitoring of personal behavior [link: http://thequantifiedself.com] gathering in multiple cities across the world. While there is one meta-community online (and in English) there are local chapters that are being self-organized to bring the experience offline and gather a local community of people passionate about self-tracking. Additionally there are times when cultural norms might warrant creating a unique community despite users speaking the same language. One thinks of India where English is nearly universally understood but the sensibilities are quite different. Or of the differences between British cultural norms and Irish or American. The defining factor here of course is what the community needs, not your corporate structure. You don’t necessarily need separate English Facebook profiles, just because you have a presence in the US and in Europe.
The first two (passion and shared goals) govern whether or not a community is justified in being created. The second two (language, locality and culture) describe whether or not the community warrants being duplicated (with tweaks) to serve people with unique attributes that would restrict them from belonging to the original community.
If you take a look at your social media footprint, how many social accounts are truly communities? Which of them deserve to continue? Which should be consolidated?
This post is part of an ongoing series taken from my eBook on Social Media Architecture; a Field Guide to Unifying your Social Media Presence. You can download the entire book here.
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Most organizations have no clear means of communicating what their social media presence actually looks like. Excel sheets with lists of dozens (or hundreds) of sites cannot convey a clear sense of the issue. This is where a simple visualization can be enormously powerful. If there is a single step I would urge you to take, it is to create a visualization of your footprint in social media. In my experience it is the most important tool in building the corporate will to recognize the problem and begin organizing for change. The minimum data set you will need for this exercise:
The goal here is not completeness of data, but collecting enough data to portray an accurate-enough picture of where you stand. Gathering this data can be achieved via a survey (as long as you can get good response rates), persistent phone calls, some investigatory research or an assignment to the agencies that service your social media needs (or some combination of all four of course!). If you find this task daunting, consider this question: how are you ever going to define an effective structure for social media if you can’t accurately define your current state?
Option One: visualize your footprint by platform:
The Footprint Visualization above allow you to take your data and place it in a powerful context for communicating the current state of your social media presence.
The figure above represents a sample visualization of an organization’s Facebook presence. This same visualization will work for each platform (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) that you would like to analyze. Note that you can adjust this visualization in a number of ways to make it the most effective for your purposes.
Here is how to read this particular visualization: each band of concentric circles represents a set range of community members. In this case the outer band represents 1 to 1,000 members, followed by 1,001 to 10,000 and finally, at the center, 10,001 and up. The dot size represents how large the community is relative to the range of the band it resides within. Thus, the largest dot in the outer band expresses the maximum of its band range, 1,000. Yet this largest dot in the outer band (1,000), is still smaller than the smallest dot in the next interior band since that band range begins at 1,001. Below each dot is the name of the audience it is serving. The color of the dots relate to the recency of brand engagement: green means the site has had moderator activity within the past 30 days, orange means no activity in past 60 days, and red means no activity in more than90 days – a dead site. In simplest terms then, a big green dot in the center is good – a large community with active brand engagement. A red dot anywhere signifies no recent moderator activity – customers that have been abandoned by the community manager. At first glance any spread of red dots lets you know that you have a problem with brand engagement or with having sites that have long been abandoned. The names of audiences can be lined up to quickly see where it is that you are fragmenting the same audience into multiple communities.
This exercise can have a powerful impact in bringing people toward a shared point of view on the issues your organization faces. Any spread of red dots creates a conversation: are we abandoning our customers with on/off campaigns? Are we fragmenting the same communities across multiple resource-intensive efforts? Are there big green dots in the center that can represent best-practice or serve as great places for valuable content from other parts of the organization? Are there any patterns to the successful sites? And so on.
Once you have developed a clear visualization, the problems are usually quite apparent. The next step then, is to clarify what constitutes a unique community. That will be in the next post.
I am a digital strategist focused on how technology opens new possibilities for social transformation and innovation within business. I am SVP and Director of Digital, Europe for Fleishman Hillard. I blog here, on O’Reilly Radar, and am a contributor for Forbes.com.
