Aide-Memoire

Social media and social networking do not reduce the need for good social skills. Rather, the disconnection from physical presence in online communication makes social skills (what some call EQ) even more critical.

Some of the recent fracas rebounding across Twitter are a good example of this – covered well by various people including @kimota and @mUmBRELLA.

The basic skills for building relationships include reciprocity, negotiation ability and sharing. Also critical are the skills of walking away gracefully from an issue or staying to fight with dignity.

For many people these are skills that were learned in the playground. But what happens when people have missed these important lessons?

What happens if the person who’s been asked to run your firm’s social media activities never developed those skills in the playground? And what are the essential skills required for effective social interaction?

It seems to me that we’ve been putting up with a paucity of social skills in the workplace for a long time and it is only now that there is traceable evidence we’ve noticed that it’s a problem. Social media merely provides us with documentary evidence of the kinds of human social interactions that have been happening for aeons. The problem is that this documentary evidence now gives these unfortunate social interactions a much longer lifespan than a cranky comment in passing conversation.

Evidently on a quick shot medium like Twitter it is easy for a grumpy day or lack of coffee combined with quick fingers to lead to an explosive incident for your brand. Then the Streisand Effect can amplify the incident so that it resonates for days or weeks afterward. And, as an added benefit, the whole thing will get indexed by search engines and be findable for ages.

Social media is now providing us with tangible evidence of how many people lack (or fail to demonstrate) the basic skills required to get along well in the playground. And these are the same skills we need to work successfully with other grown-ups, both online and offline.

Goleman, one of the gurus of emotional intelligence, offers twelve questions to assess emotional intelligence. Answer ‘yes’ to half or more, (and if others who know you agree with the self-rating) then you are apparently doing okay.

The real question is how can we apply this to social media and learn how to channel the best of ourselves rather than the worst?

Goleman’s 12 Questions

1. Do you understand both your strengths and weaknesses?
2. Can you be depended on to take care of every detail? Do you hate to let things slide?
3. Are you comfortable with change and open to novel ideas?
4. Are you motivated by the satisfaction of meeting your own standards of excellence?
5. Can you stay optimistic when things go wrong?
6. Can you see things from another person’s point of view and sense what matters most to that person?
7. Do you let customers’ needs determine how you serve them?
8. Do you enjoy helping co-workers develop their skills?
9. Can you read office politics accurately?
10. Are you able to find “win-win” solutions in negotiations and conflicts?
11. Are you the kind of person other people want on a team? Do you enjoy collaborating with others?
12. Are you usually persuasive?

[Source: Goleman, Daniel. "Working Smart." USA Weekend, October 2-4, 1998, pp. 4-5.]

It’s not really meaningless babble anyway! And this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Most conversation is not important for the words we speak. Instead it is the act of being present to the other person and giving attention that gives most conversations their true value. Some experts term this social grooming.

It also enables the growth of social bonds by means of the time spent in relatively trivial communications.  These seemingly unimportant communications are what makes dealing with bigger issues between individuals and groups easier.

How much easier is it to ask for help from someone you’ve known socially for a while than a stranger? How much easier is it to know the best way to phrase a suggestion or request to someone if you’ve chatted with them before?

The important thing that social networking tools like Twitter or Facebook  (or newer tools like Google’s Buzz) enable is non-localised proximity. No longer do you need to run into a person in the office kitchen each day to build up informal social ties.  Now we can do it from half a world away in real-time.

It’s also worth checking out Dunbar on this kind of thing.

There is a difference between merely engaging in positive thinking and undertaking positive action. On its own thinking is merely an interior act, and only when connected to positive actions does it create new realities.

Look at issues like slavery, women’s rights, democracy. Changes in each of these were fueled by anger channeled towards action that led to change. I like to call this productive anger. It’s not about rage, rather it’s about what some might call ‘righteous anger’.

Productive anger that generates positive action has led to great changes in world.

I suppose it’s what you do with the positive thoughts that matters more than merely thinking them. One of my old school mottos was:

In deed not word
1 John 3:18

And a famous slogan of the Suffragette movement was:

“‘Deeds, not words’, was to be our permanent motto,”
Pankhurst

I spoke at Ross Dawson’s SME Technology Summit last week. Here are my slides & some brief thoughts about social media for business:

This is a very thought provoking TED talk from Philip Zimbardo. He’s famous for the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment.

Think about how you would react in certain situations (e.g. Abu Ghraib) – how easy it is to act in ways you might regret later? Hero or villain it all comes down to choices.

The other interesting thing to consider is how the growth in communications devices and information sharing technologies makes hiding evil acts so much harder nowadays. The revelations from Abu Ghraib are an excellent example.

I went for a cheese & wine dinner at Bells at Killcare on Friday night with @frombecca and @JohannaBD.

The food – by Stefano Manfredi (a.k.a. @manfredistefano) – was wonderful as usual. The wines selected by Michael Trembath were lovely, the cheeses selected by Will Studd were a delight, the venue charming, and our hosts Brian & Karina Barry welcoming.

But, while each of these was admirable, the thing that pulled it all together was the amazing professionalism and teamwork by the staff at Bells.

The staff were the people who executed and brought together all the elements into a seamless and wonderful evening.

This is the kind of thing that you see with great companies.  They have similar kinds of raw materials to their competitors but understand how to execute with excellence.  And execution always come down to the staff.

The smooth teamwork and gracious service at Bells is what made the evening.  The same fundamental elements without the service would not have been so great.

It got me thinking about how true this is for business, even for social media – it is the quality of the execution that makes all the difference.

The Media 140 Conference in Sydney has offered a vast amount of food for thought my brain is buzzing with ideas, issues and concerns.

The first thing that struck me was the level of fear and fear-mongering by some of the print journalists on day one. For example in the session titled How Social Media is Changing Political Reporting Caroline Overington and Chris Uhlmann both seemed close to arguing that the end of the free world as we know it is nigh should one of the major east coast newspapers in Australia fail.

There seemed to be little idea amongst these panelists that changing media platforms might reinvigorate media and create new revenue or career opportunities.

This notion that unless “proper journalism”, that is journalism as we have known it since the mid-late nineteenth century as practised by employees of the great media barons, exists then no valuable news will exist seems odd.

When one considers why news came to be produced in that particular way in that particular time it seems clear that technology and cost constraints prohibited new entrants to the news creation and sharing market.

However today those barriers to entry are rapidly disappearing and ordinary people are creating their own news. But, while the need for professional production facilities is diminishing, there seems to be ample space for journalists and news organisations to explore business models based on aggregation, curation and clarification of issues and perspectives.

Caroline Overington also discussed the News Ltd plan to charge for content. It will be interesting to see their plan and how it unfolds. My experience indicates that online micropayments are not as easy to use and intuitive as they need to be for mass adoption. Also the nature of the content must be compelling enough on a continual basis for people to subscribe.

Amusingly at the same time as Ms Overington was delivering her apologia for News Ltd they announced a revenue slump of 4.1%.

#media140

As both an educator and tertiary student I’ve been able to see both sides of the fence. A recent experience with Queensland University of Technology stands out as exemplary in both student support and customer service.

A change in personal circumstances recently meant that I needed to make a decision and act very quickly regarding my studies. And I required speedy access to some information about my options as a student in the QUT Law School.

I tried phoning the Law School and was unable to get through to anyone. Immediately I sent an email outlining my issues to Kaylene Matheson, the Administrative Officer (Student Support) in the Law School.

Kaylene responded within minutes, phoning to give me a run down of the options available. She then emailed me contact details for Student Services, who could fill in the last bit of information so as to finalise my decision within the necessary timeframe.

The next morning I called Student Services and spoke to a really helpful chap, who patiently talked through my options explaining the consequences of each. We had a constructive discussion and I was able to decide on a course of action. He then explained exactly how to finalise my decision & noted what records I should keep for future reference.

Both Kaylene & my unknown helper at Student Services provided support and great customer service. They were patient and helpful, taking the time to help me to understand what I needed to do. They are a credit to QUT & are great brand ambassadors!

The funny thing is that this makes sense; as everyone that I’ve dealt with at QUT has been helpful and supportive. Clearly this is part of their organisational culture. What this all means is that when you put the good customer service together with good academics and good student support systems (like Blackboard and website) it makes a good place to study.

Following are some of my off the cuff responses on Twitter:

“the student services people at QUT.edu.au totally rock – they are super professional & really helpful!!! = EPIC WIN!!!”
10:02 AM Sep 17th

“some other unis should learn from QUT!”
10:03 AM Sep 17th

“if you are looking for a uni for distance education I cannot recommend QUT more highly – a very professional & positive experience”
10:03 AM Sep 17th

Media140 Sydney is asking “What is the future of journalism in the Social Media Age?”

It’s an important question to be asking in these times of newspaper companies in trouble and growth of new media channels.

The venue is the ABC’s Eugene Goossens’ Hall, Sydney on November 5th and 6th. It’s apparently the first time that the ABC has hosted a Twitter conference!

Media140 Sydney plans to explore the

“… disruptive nature of ‘real-time’ social media looking at tools such as Twitter, live-blogging, Facebook and other social networking tools as they rapidly transform the media in real-time.”

There’s a bunch of the Sydney Twitterati attending & speaking on panels – sounds like fun. I’m hoping to get along there too.

The other night I caught up with some friends who (except for @dbendall) also happen to use Twitter (@fibendall, @iggypintado, @kerrypintado) at a local pub for some grub, a drink, lively conversation & exchange of ideas.

Now this is a smart and entertaining bunch of people. But some of the characteristics of our real life interaction helped me to perceive why Twitter might work so well for some folks.

The hashtag for the evening turned out to be #ihavethetalkingfork. This is because the ideas and discussion around the table were flowing so fast that we were falling over each other to get our words out. In a vain attempt to impose some order, and notion of taking turns, at one stage the convention of the ‘talking fork’ was adopted, only to fail a few minutes later as there were a number of forks on the table.

This phenomenon of simultaneous outbound and inbound communication is something that Twitter enables quite well. You can get your idea out at the same time as I can. Then we can each respond to the other’s idea. This means that, unlike in real life, on Twitter we can almost multiplex our communications.

Some people might just see this problem as one of rudeness. But it is what happens when you put a bunch of people with ideas who, while talking to each other, generate new ideas and made new connections. I learned a lot from being part of the conversation at that table. Some of the things @iggypintado has planned sound amazing.