The Walk

Saturday, Dec. 19 was "The Walk" at the Stan Sheriff Center. It was a joyous occasion with everybody in good spirits. Virginia Pressler, MD gave a justly upbeat commencement address noting her varied path to her final career as a surgeon and now CEO of Hawaii Pacific Health. She overcame many obstacles, mainly gender discrimination, without complaint or bitterness.
Similarly, Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw urged us not to take ourselves too seriously, to take risks and to have fun along the way. I previously only read things from her in email or news releases. She sounded much more personable and interesting in person.
It was both humbling and an honor to stand with such a talented group of PhD candidates and to sit with the faculty after the hooding. I skipped my masters commencement but I'm glad that I did not skip this one. Also good excuse to get the family together.

Waste of Time?

Thanks to socialmedia@smartbrief.com for the link to Forbes' story on social media as wasting billions in the UK.
The survey they cite mentions 40 minutes per week per employee on personal social networking. Unfortunately the benefits are not so easy to quantify and may exceed the costs.
The helpful point in the story is about the need for social guidelines at companies rather than bans. I would recommend a step further and say the policy should be one of appropriate encouragement of social media use at work.

P.S. Dissertation all done. To be posted soon.

Social Media Use and Employee Engagement?

Revisions done and out to the committee, day job back under control. It's time to catch up on the literature while awaiting advice on the final adjustments.
Interesting article in BusinessWeek on the importance of employee engagement. We know employees who produce significantly less than others. Not necessarily bad employees but ones that are not working up to to their potentials. Of course our job in management -- at any level -- is to get our people more engaged, more productive.
Take a look at this posting by Krisztina Holly and Jim Clifton.
It's not just about productivity, innovation is a key output to engagement. Engaged employees contribute ideas and encourage others. It makes sense that social media can help build engagement if management empowers them.

Social Media Correlates of Organizational Climate

The dissertation was defended successfully today! My sincere thanks to the committee and the Univ. of Hawaii Communication and Information Sciences Program. I'll be posting a few findings here and of course the search is on for a traditional journal publication.
Here is a sample: Those who use social media at work tend to be more trusting of top management. This is correlation not causality.
BTW -- anything posted here can be used by others as long as it is attributed.

Facebook the clear winner at work

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Here's a tidbit from my research on organizational climate and social media use. Facebook is the clear winner at work over other social media sites. Does much better than the more business-oriented LinkedIn. I suspect that ease of use, huge membership and zero cost are the reasons. For many businesses Facebook is quite adequate for enhancing the external network of its people.
The data from my sample out of the Syracuse University Study Response pool. Selected were people in the U.S., 18 or over, and employed at least half time.

Sun's Blog Rules

Another interest story from Ragan was the interview with Terry "tMac" McKenzie, senior director of employee communications at Sun. Sun is of course a leader in employee blogging starting with the COO, Jonathan Schwartz and the well-known policy. A couple of topics in the interview struck me as particularly interesting.
Terry summarized the policy as
1. Be interesting -- including be controversial but responsible.
2. Don't be stupid. Follow SEC rules, don't slander, etc. (Is that like "Don't be evil"?)
3. If you don't follow #2, you are on your own if you get sued.
"We are all about sharing and open systems," she said.
In the same e-newsletter, Ragan offers a three hour social media boot camp. If you think that is audacious or on the other hand, too long, just watch the interview with Terry that covers a lot of the ground in just a few minutes.
Another part of the interview dealt with the disappointment and posts related to Sun's not making a best places to work ranking. Many of these rankings depend on an employee survey, a subject of research interest with me so I will follow up. Maybe Sun has some of its own surveys beyond the proprietary one used for the best places ranking. The best places survey is known to have a significant trust component.
BTW, I learned from Vida Killian -- Thank you! -- that Dell does not have such surveys with respect to social media impact.

An Example of a Great Site

Thanks to Lindsey Miller of Ragan Communications for the story on the employee blog at Children's Health Care of Atlanta. The site is called Strong Enough to Care Enough. It's got to be tough dealing with often very sick children.
They spent a modest sum to set it up well and then have realistic costs going forward. Yes, it could have been done for less but employee time is valuable too.
Congratulations!

Still need more data

I've been busy analyzing my social media and organizational climate data. I can use more since the "3-10-87%" participation rule -- or an approximation thereto -- still applies.
I've updated the link at the right. I'm debating donating a dollar to the Red Cross for each complete response. It's not compensation for your time but collectively -- a thousand completed questionnaires would be good -- the donation would be meaningful. What do you think?
The Society for New Communication Research (SNCR) is running its Tribalization of Business study. Looks interesting. See 2008 results and link to 2009 study at their website.