Sci Am Special Issue on Cities

As always the September issue of Scientific American is a treat. The dynamism and innovation of cities, including or especially shanty towns, is a marvel. The size of the informal, off the books economy was a surprise to me. Can we capture that spirit of survival and entrepreneurship to improve health and education?
The sale of phone cards is a significant component of the informal economy. To what extent have mobile phone enabled the 'underground' economy? In the past, the TV antennas in the shanty towns were striking. Today it's everybody on a cell/smart phone regardless of the economic status of the neighborhood.

David Brooks' Haimish Line

Seek out David Brooks' recent column on the Haimish line. 'South of the Haimish line' we are more connected to those around us as in the neighborhood pub or coffee shop compared to the fancy hotel. Reminds me of the time I was "thrown out" of first class on an airline (it was an alleged pass travel issue, not bad behavior) and went to the back where the other passengers told me to take of my tie and enjoy the journey. I did and it was a pleasant, relaxed trip with everybody having a non-rowdy good time.

Nisbett's Intelligence and How to Get It

What an inspiring book! It provides convincing evidence that great things are possible for students of all ages who work hard and for whom high, realistic expectations are set. Contrary to the hereditarians, genetics, while important, are not the determining factor for those of us in the normal range of intelligence. Supportive parents, teachers and culture dominate.
Intelligence and How to Get It presents a lot of research in a very readable manner. In addition to reviews of effective school programs, the reference to the US Dept. of Education's What Works Clearinghouse provides links to new findings.

Just Received The Social Animal

My wife gets to read David Brooks' The Social Animal first. With the end of the semester looming, just as well. I see that, like Daniel Pink's Drive, it cites a lot of important social science research. Hey, it's affirmation of the significance of the science to which we contribute.
(Brooks and Krugman alone may be worth the NYTimes' new fees.)
Another science-based business is that of Glen Furuya and his Leadership Works company. (Can't get away with presenting at a university with just made-up ideas.)

Support the Honolulu Diabetes Walk March 19, 2011

It's a 7:30 a.m. walk at Kapiolani Park with the great view of Diamond Head.

My team is Poprae Tonal.  Tonal  (pronounced tongal) is the Marshallese word for diabetes.

Poprae means prevent.

See www.tinyurl.com/popraetonal   that links to the American Diabetes Association site.

Walk or not, donations are welcome.

Aloha,

  Dan

All you can eat may be over

Do people in South Korea or Japan, places with very high percent of households with broadband, pay by the MByte? I believe that they get a low entry price.
As long as my data packet gets sent just as fast as anybody else's packet regardless of content, that's net neutrality. Different ISP's will provide different pricing models.

Where does creativity come from?

Thanks so much to Luis Suarez for this video post and commentary, "The Source of Creativity by John Cleese:"

Grit comes in when people devote enough time to give serious thought to ideas. That is not at all to play down the advantages of social networking to test and refine ideas.

Another Book

In another diversion, I'm reading Catherine Drinker Bowen's Miracle at Philadelphia that is about the draft of the Constitution. The debate about the rich vs. the middle class was going on then too.

Another book I want to read is Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails by Tom Wheeler. It's about the role of the telegraph and Lincoln's use of it in the Civil War. But my book reviews of Pink's book and Li's book will come first.

Back to the Blog and Two Books

Having neglected this for months, it's time to revive it.

I highly recommend these recent books:

Drive by Daniel H. Pink, and

Open Leadership by Charlene Li

Reviews in work. Both combine theory and practical advice.

And the new grandson Keoki Jaki is a joy

Here's a link for some good advice for me on writing by Nerma Moore.

"No Theory"

Does the Public Relations Society of America really believe, as their mailer I received today says, that "No Theory" is a good idea? Somehow "measurable benefits" and "best practices" are supposed to be consistent with "no theory."

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

(Click to enlarge)



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.

Organizational Climate and Social Media Use

Over to the right is a link to a recent version of my survey on social media use and organizational climate. The organizational climate measures are very similar to those that I have used before. That's of course because they have been validated by prior research that I build on.
What's new is the adaptation of the Groundswell social media use questions with some additions of my own. The Groundswell questions are from prior research but their scaling, etc. is proprietary; my scaling and research will be put in the public domain.
A compact valid and reliable measurement tool for social media use is one of biggest needs in this line of study. For example, there are some very good multi-dimensional trust scales that researchers would recognize. Disparate media use measures are a problem. It is hard to compare studies if the measures are different.
Feel free to take the survey and link to it. If you would like a customized version for your firm I would be delighted help by it a win-win proposition; you get the data and reports you need -- I'll do them for you at no cost -- and I get de-identified data. Both the individuals and firms remain anonymous.
Let me know what you think.

IBM Serious about Social Media & Corporate Culture

Luis Suarez had a recent post about meeting with IBM customers concerning corporate culture and social media. That is, uses of the media beyond utilitarian purposes. Of course that's my hypothesis about an ROI for social capital that's an amplifier of productivity.
I thought about some recent flaming email I saw recently -- yes it still goes on, amazingly -- and speculated that the author would have written differently on a wiki related to the project. In addition to the productivity gain of a wiki, greater civility would result.
An indication of how serious IBM is about social media is that they have 500 or so "ambassador" talking about their products.