I always am wary about anything smacking of “calculators” in social media and PR, particularly those advanced by companies with an interest in selling social media as a revolution.  But Johnson’s role as SVP of the Advertising Research Foundation lends a serious imprint to the task. The ARF is working with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) to create a set of social media measurement guidelines for the industry, she wrote.  My only concern is that the effort — being driven by marketers — will continue the marketing-centric, impression-oriented, reach-focused, quantity over quality mentality we’ve seen so far — or that it will be full of, well, BS metrics and methods.

Johnson writes of her similar concern, “I don’t think we’re talking about a wrong way of looking at influence, but we could be looking at only one side of the equation. In measuring social media, we have to listen, observe, and study to understand who the real influencers are. Perhaps an influencer’s influence isn’t driven online, but offline. Here’s where Razorfish’s SIM Score (or perhaps Altimeter’s Social Marketing Framework) can help us capture–along with the aid of engagement in a private community, an interview or survey–the offline component.”

Read the piece — it’s worth it.

Death by IT PowerPoint - well, just illness...

A couple of weeks ago, I attended that IT conference I wrote about before, Integrate 2010: Uniting the World of IT.  The group putting it on was the Greater Cleveland Local Interest Group of ITSMF-USA, which is a professional association for IT Service Management.  As I mentioned, it was great — I learned something new, met some interesting people and commiserated with yet another staff function that feels unappreciated. Here is part one of some observations about the sessions and speakers I saw.

George Spalding, VP Global Events, Pink Elephant

Spalding is a jovial, pink-faced man with round tortoise-shell glasses and a somewhat unconventional delivery for his speech, “2000 Years of IT Service Management.” He started his piece with a series of slides that took stories from the Bible and refit them into info tech situations. Think “Noah’s Ark” as an IT Enterprise Software project. His point was to show how silly typical IT responses to issues are — “Why do incidents happen? Someone made a change. Don’t we test these things?”

Spalding went on a while with Biblical story-telling, and from my perspective could have shortened the list. His main audience seemed to be charmed — and there was no denying the main messages: “You’re not in the IT business anymore” was the critical nugget — sound familiar? Prior to Y2K, Spalding said, “Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt” gave IT the freedom to do as it pleased. Once the world kept spinning into the new millennium, IT moved into the service business, and now there’s no returning to the old ways. He’s obviously comfortable with this speech and delivery — he could have been even better with some judicious editing, and a bit of presentation skills editing, too.

Michael Lundblad, Rational Worldwide Sales Executive, IBM

Mike Lundblad comes with a story. An ex-Marine officer, he speaks well, commands attention and represents an important company. The content of his presentation, “How to Recover from an Application Heart Attack,” was so far into the IT manual that I really couldn’t wrap my head around it.  He also seemed mainly to be describing products (Rational and Tivoli), rather than offering some type of independent advice or action steps. Of course, maybe that’s par for the course at these conferences — it was my first one!

Bob Balassi, chief technology officer, Maryville Technologies

Bob wore the same suit/shirt/tie combination on the dais as he wore in his program photo. He was a very polished, smooth speaker, but didn’t move at all (missing clicker hindered the show…note: buy your own – and don’t forget to bring it!). The static delivery hurt the presentation, but didn’t kill it. The title of the presentation is too long to include, but it was on what’s called IT Transformation. That’s the wholesale redo of a company’s IT world, moving from being technology driven to business driven. It’s kind of like when PR teams reorg to align more with their clients, rather than their own internal preferences.

His big message was that A) The transformation will continue (209 million Google results); B) Merger situations tend to push IT into the background, but improving these tools in a service format can yield a 25%-40% productivity increase and a rise in net present value of 5%-10% — that’s real strategic value, not just control-oriented window dressing. Could we make a similar claim for a communications transformation?

In another easily adapted bon mot, Bob said change management – both IT and organizational — is critical to success. Adopt-Adapt-Transform is the modality he shared, along with the need to engage employees and top leadership. He said there are stars, skeptics, cynics and slugs (and stabilizers), and you have to know how many of your team are in what category. I could have been hearing from just about any business improvement consultant. He did a fine job, though his PowerPoint was killing me.

More in part two.

He’s right, and he’s wrong.

The challenge always is whether to keep fighting or just give managers what they want.  FitzPatrick relates a story about a senior manager who wants “intelligence” about what employees are saying and thinking from her internal comms support.  There are a lot of things a skilled internal communicator can do to gather that intelligence, but much of the budgetary process is more output-focused than outcome-focused (echoing the same tendency elsewhere in corporate communications.)

The key for any of us is research (he said self-servingly — my practice includes research services, just sayin;.)

The research doesn’t even have to be quantitative, though tying qualitative assessment to intranet traffic, for example, can shed a lot of light on the effectiveness of our internal comms activities. We don’t have to do formal surveys, which can be very expensive and time consuming, if all we’re looking for is a snapshot to share for planning and strategy.

At Goodyear, we used an intranet poll to get just that sort of intelligence — it was a great window into what at least some employees were thinking, and it gave us a source of content, too.

But, there is no replacement for more formal measurement — even with qualification of our poll results, we still got management questions about the reach of opinion, which is a valid criticism. The old ROPE method (Research, Objective, Programming, Evaluation) still holds truth.

Meanwhile, read FitzPatrick’s piece. It’s worth reading (and commenting — no comments on his blog, so I wrote this post!)

Everyone should take the time to assess their own objectives for attending a conference, seminar, luncheon or other event. Think through what you want to get out of it, what you’re willing to put into it. My objective, this summer, is to expand the network, among people who might want to engage my services.  I’ve been marketing myself through social media, and among communication organizations — the IABC Conference, my presentation to Lake Communicators, and this fall’s presentations at the PRSA International Conference and IABC’s Research and Measurement Conference.

While reviewing networking opportunities here in Cleveland on Pat Ropchock’s blog (she’s locked in big time), I noted “Integrate 2010: Uniting the World of IT” put on by the Greater Cleveland Local Interest Group of the ITSMFUSA – it’s a mouthful of an acronym that means, “IT people who want to be more relevant and strategic.”  They call the main discipline “Service Management,” a process for aligning IT services with the needs of the enterprise.

The themes that emerged from most of the presentations I saw were fascinating.

• IT feels like it’s not at the leadership table. Instead, they’re brought in after the business strategy’s in place and have to scramble to make things happen.
• IT struggles to articulate its business value for all but a handful of services.
• IT gets stuck on describing activities rather than defining its service portfolio in terms that the business leadership understands.
• IT often can’t “sell” itself effectively, caught up in jargon and technical detail that isn’t relevant to leadership.

What happens if we replace “IT” with “PR” or “Corporate Communication?”

• A consistent theme of IABC/PRSA material for years was “winning a seat at the table,” and then keeping it. We’ve been talking amongst ourselves for as long as I’ve been in the business about being business people first and communicators second. Yet, we’re still not there consistently.

• Think about the debates over measurement methods — PR activity is difficult to isolate in the communication mix, and there are no standard answers for return on communication investment. Just last year, PRSA and the Institute for PR began working on a project to prove the business value of our profession. Internal communication is especially vulnerable to the question of ROI — and social media value outside of direct sales is still an unfinished book.

• PR/Communications people frequently take as a given that their professional activities are impactful, regardless of the lack of data to support that claim. Our “service book” describes our activity from our perspective, not from that of our customers.

• We (especially in internal communications) tend to resort to tactical explanations using our own lingo, rather than speaking about our work in terms readily understood by HR, Finance and leadership.

Sometimes it may seem like IT is on a different planet — more science than art, more Mars than Venus.  We, however, aren’t that different in our desires to be taken seriously by leadership as business people who employ specialized skills.

In addition to a few other things I discovered, this knowledge about IT was worth the price of admission.

More to follow on the conference shortly.

The programming and format are nearly identical to my first International, in 1995, also in Toronto. That one was a revelation — I was just 4 years or so into the profession, and everything was new.  Every session offered fascinating insights or enhanced skills.  I met scores of people and hung out with many, enjoying my first trip to Toronto and my first extended business trip in several years.

In 1997, L.A. was a different experience. Many of the speakers were the same as two years earlier, and in 2002 at Chicago, there were just a few sessions that really caught my eye. So I took a vacation from the big show until this year.

Things that impressed me:

Erin Dick from Pratt & Whitney — a social media case study that wasn’t from a Silicon Valley firm… Her use of blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr to help support P&W’s client (the U.S.Government) on the selection of an engine for the Joint Strike Force fighter was off the charts — brilliant. And it had a fairly strong measurement component. I decided to Tweet the session instead of trying to take notes. The benefit was that I had a great summary, though my thumbs threatened to lock up from BlackBerry-itis…

William Amurgis from American Electric Power — Looking for use of social media in internal communications? Amurgis delivered. AEP’s blogs, discussion boards, employee-uploaded photos, etc., set a high standard of participation. The company’s intranet philosophy? Enhance employee productivity, reinforce corporate messages and provide a place to meet for all employees. Everything has to pass through that frame, or it doesn’t happen. And, rather than buy software solutions, AEP makes their own. Amurgis has a designer and a developer on his staff.

The UnConference — OK, it was a bit different than other UnConferences (usually low-or-no-cost, open to anyone; you had to buy the day (at least) for the IABC Conference to get in, and it wasn’t cheap) — but the method of operation was different and fun. There was no pre-set program, just a list of ideas posted on the TorontoTalks website (that a few people did discuss first), and three 5-minute “keynotes” — very informally delivered.  The three-hour session on Sunday afternoon was comprised of four 25-minute blocks of time with six possible topics (being held at six tables). We wrote on sticky notes our question or suggested topic, then stuck it on a flip chart in an empty time slot. The writer could lead the discussion, or someone else could.  I talked measurement (what a shock!) with seven other folks and it was fascinating. We didn’t solve the ROI question in full, nor did we get into other facets of communication, but it still was valuable and fun.

The thing is, the (nice) venue, formal structure and overwhelming size of the show made it hard to connect with people. Even the formal networking session (the big one held on the floor of the exhibit show) was just an hour long — not near enough time to connect. (I also didn’t attend Monday’s sessions — none particularly grabbed me. That might have inhibited my networking activities, so shame on me!)

The cost was pretty high for a new entrepreneur, not only in travel but in the conference fee. I’ll be considering very carefully before jumping on again soon. But, if I wind up as a speaker…

{FYI, I’m speaking in November at IABC’s Research and Measurement Conference in Seattle, as well as at the PRSA National conference in DC in October.  I’m also willing to come to chapter lunches, etc., and can make a deal for my PRSA/IABC fellow members!}

Central Federal Corp and CFBank – a four-branch bank headquartered in suburban Akron with 66 full-time employees, according to Yahoo! Finance — is going to find out how easy it will be, now that former kahuna Mark Allio stepped down. According to Crain’s Cleveland Business, Allio offered his resignation at the company’s annual meeting, and now the firm is searching for a new leader, with General Counsel Eloise Mackus steering the ship in the meantime (and “indicating interest”, per the Crain’s piece).

During any big change process — and a CEO transition is usually a big one — employees get distracted; it’s human nature. There are at least 65 people at that company wondering 1) Who’ll be the boss? 2) What will he/she change? and 3) What will it mean for me. It won’t help matters that the company’s financial performance (as with many banks) has suffered during the recession. Now the boss quits and there’s going to be a “process” to replace him.

Employees are ripe for worry, and worried employees seldom give great service, which ostensibly is the raison d’être for community banks.

The tendency of the board and leadership team is to look inward to themselves and the shareholders. Yes, they have a fiduciary responsibility to those owners, but they must not ignore their wider team. I don’t know that they have or have not — but they will need to ramp up the contact with the ordinary employees and be sure they’re equipped with the right tools to manage the customers and prospects.

Here are three “must-dos” –

1.  A note to employees with a draft customer letter — explaining the change and next steps, including a basic timeline.

2.  Questions-and-answers document anticipating what customers, community leaders, friends and family will want to know about the change.

3.  Commitment to a weekly email note and a twice-monthly conference call for managers updating everyone on progress.

It’s not a hard thing to do at all, and following these steps can make it a whole lot easier to glide through the transition.

BP’s feckless communication strategy, especially demonstrated by company CEO Tony Hayward’s frequent gaffes when speaking off the cuff, deserves to be pilloried. Hayward and company were obviously led by lawyers in this regard, minimizing the potential impact of the disastrous gusher, appearing too rarely in public and pointing blame to subcontractors. Hayward’s “I’d like my life back” rang especially tone-deaf in the wake of 11 deaths and the potential for catastrophic wildlife impact (not to mention the economic peril for the gulf fishing industry.) Several communication experts get quoted in Wallace Immen’s excellent piece, including Michael Stern (Michael Stern Associates), Prof. Julian Barling (Queen’s University School of Business), and Guy Beaudin, (RHR International).

Lululemon sells athletic ware, and by all accounts does a bang-up job of it. Some of the success, according to CEO Christine Day, is due to its use of social media — Twitter and Facebook.  Reporter Marina Strauss quotes Day: “We learn more about [which items are in demand] on Facebook and social media: what are the guests really screaming for, and so we use [the feedback] to get a little bit more indication.”

Keeping an eye on its 127,000 Facebook fans and 32,000 Twitter followers gets Day and company a faster view than its store performance metrics (and offers perspectives from people who are just thinking about going to the store, rather than having bought something there — that’s an interesting view on potential demand, the pipeline, some call it.)

The social media use has two purposes, according to the article — to gather information, and to drive traffic to the company website. When we’re looking for ways to measure the effectiveness of social media, website traffic is more often cited than the research value, which is a pity.  Going back to the ROPE method of communication planning (Research, Objectives, Programming, Evaluation), you don’t have anything without the research.

If social media served no other purpose than market intelligence, it’d still be worth the investment, no?

{P.s., my Canadian sojourn is nearly complete – back to a more regular schedule next week.)

The Plain Dealer story is fairly predictable — “corporate challenges” presented by social media, together with tales of employees fired, foolish companies and an emphasis on the need for strong policies.  The central message is “CONTROL.” This disappoints me, especially because the story dwells so much on blocking social media. Katie Herbst (@katieherbst), who manages social marketing for an insurance company, offers a good counter to the blocking argument, pointing out that time-wasting won’t necessarily be limited by the lack of social media.

The Journal piece talks about apps that can turn social media platforms into sales generators — unmentioned is the time-honored technique of pointing people to a URL.  A couple of strange notes — a marketing professor is quoted saying that businesses must advertise to make people aware of their Facebook fan page, and that large numbers of fans are needed to “sway” buyers. This is a very traditionalist approach that ignores the relationship-building that’s at the heart of social media’s appeal.

Also, the story includes the requisite warning that social media could make for customer service challenges — another professor recommends an even higher level of service to support a Facebook page than other channels.  A Houston sports retailer added a Facebook app to its Facebook Fan page in 2008, but has sold only 50 products through it. Again, a narrow view of success, because unmentioned is the impact of Facebook relationships on other sales channels.

In both of these stories, the reporting is surface-only. The frames in which they operate are very much rooted in mainstream marketing, and little in either story (apart from @DJLitten’s good perspectives on technology and productivity) reflect the reputational and relational opportunities that social media is really all about.

Of course, many marketers are guilty of similar biases — they see the “captive” audience of Facebook fans and want to broadcast to them. Learning to see these tools in their proper context is a challenge all its own.

Present company definitely included.

If this research can be extrapolated, the emphasis we communicator-types have placed on helping managers create a “safe” environment for people to speak up isn’t helping managers get the straight scoop that they need. It’s almost an HR article of faith that humanistic style, paying close attention, smiling and telling people you really want them to share is the path to effective leadership. Now this.

Does employee feedback matter? It does to employees, but we can’t get at the problem presented by this research without addressing the elephant in the living room… When they give feedback, does anything happen to fix the issues they share? It’s just like doing employee surveys — if you aren’t willing to change your organization as a consequence of the research, don’t do it.

The disappointment of truly thinking like a business owner and offering suggestions that go nowhere is soul-crushing. Why do it if it just doesn’t matter? Cue up Bill Murray and “Meatballs.”

On the other hand, what if organizations committed to changing where it makes sense and letting people know. Sounds kind of, well, motivational.

Nah.