Author – Tyler Knowlton
In every large organization internal communications is a challenge. Day to day tasks like file sharing, document creation, looking up some one’s email or finding the HR department can be a challenge. An approach that many organizations have approached these challenges is through an internal Web site or Intranet.
Most small to medium-sized enterprises and government or non-profit organisations in the US believe that having an intranet is important, according to Modalis.
Nearly three-quarters of those polled said having an intranet allows their staff to work more efficiently and more productively and 72% said an intranet improves collaboration and knowledge sharing. (economist magazine online)
These statistics come from a study done in 2001 – at the height of read-only Web, or Web 1.0. The question now is, if the adoption of a Web 1.0 tactic could increase productivity so dramatically, can an organization adopt a Web 2.0 (read and write web) tactic to a similar advantage – thus modernizing their approach to internal communications. If an organization were to adopt a Web 2.0 or social media approach to internal communications;
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What effect will this have on the management structure and flow of information?
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What are the risks in adopting such an approach?
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And in the case of the Federal Government, can a “social media as tactics” approach meet the accessibility requirements as laid out by the Treasury Board?
First let’s define our terms.
Web 1.0 = Read only Web. Web 1.0 is limited to 1 way communication – from the communicator to the receiver. This can be summed up in the simple analogy of the Web 1.0 receiver is all eyes and no hands. We can read the information on the screen and that’s it.
Web 2.0 = Read and write Web. Web 2.0 is a 2 way communications model. The communicator initiates a stream meaning and then the receiver can add to that stream, divert it, or send it back with changes – and the process continues. Web 2.0 is interactive. Web 2.0 is eyes and hands, seeing and doing, receiving and broadcasting. Web 2.0 is the beginning of the democratization of information.
Social Media:
Social media describes a new set of Internet tools that enable shared community experiences, both online and in person. (technology in transition)
Social Media is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into content publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers. (wikipedia)
The most important part of these definitions of social media are the words “enable” and “conversation.” Media is not social. People are social. Social media has always existed based on the definitions above. People have always had access to media channels such as pirate radio, zine culture, news letters, local independent press, etc. However, these channels have always had a relatively low return on investment for amateur users. What has changed with the current and “officially named” social media is the ease with which a massive number of people can connect and share information quickly. If we now take this into account, we realize that social media as it stands today cannot create positive relationships in a hostile or unwelcoming environment environment. Social media amplifies current communications between employees.
Understanding that introducing elements of social media into an organization’s internal network will only amplify a current communications plan – or lack thereof, may not be the best news for managers pushing to implement some new ideas. What is important when approaching the task of integrating social media into an existing plan, is to have a clear understanding of the organization’s culture, current plan, and expectations for the new plan.
What effect will a social media rich internal communications plan have on the management structure of an organization and its flow of information?
Using social media tools to develop working relationships within an organization and provide essential information and tools to employees can have the effect of flattening the management structure by decentralizing the control of information.
In the current intranet model of information management, new information comes into a central point of contact for the intranet (usually in communications or IT) and is then coded and released onto the intranet for general consumption.
Before the information makes it to the coding process it will (usually) make its way through a variety of checks and balances, approvals and re-edits, before finally “landing on the desk” of the code jockey who zaps it into cyberspace. This is a vertical a system as you can get.
Before any information goes out into the (internal) world it must all pass through the bottleneck of the programmer? Like sand through the hourglass, or cars through the rotary (just don’t hit rush hour) our information is converging on one central point of operations.
Web 2.0 can break this model down into various degrees of control, depending on the level of responsibility the organization is ready to pass of to its employees. The checks and balances that safeguard accuracy, sensitivity and timeliness, do not disappear with the integration of this new technology. What does shift is control of publishing, moving from its central IT/communications location to the individual Departmental management.
The organization’s flow of information can be flattened by degrees depending on the amount of responsibility that is transferred away from the central “intranet office” to the outlying departments, and then from the departmental management to the employees themselves.
This flattening of the organization’s management structure occurs only to the extent that the organization’s corporate culture will allow.
How does corporate culture enter into the social media as internal communications equation?
Every Government department has its own corporate culture, as does every organization. The differences in management style, employee interactions, special events, and even variables as simple as employee age differences, all affect the corporate culture within these departments. Technically, all
Government departments/agencies has a similar vertical management structure in order to ensure accuracy, regulatory compliance (i.e. Official Languages Act), and consistency – at least in the communications world. Government is never penalized for being slow, but can be cancelled for being wrong. Approve, sign, revise; approve, protect.
How the department actually functions outside of the approvals process varies immensely. A department that has few employees, is located in a small community, and has a high retention rate for its employees may be functioning on a more horizontal structure (existing outside of the official, vertical structure) where all employees have equal access to higher-level management simply due to social proximity. This type of corporate culture may be more conducive to implementing a social media structure for internal communications. The standard level of communication has been set by the the culture of the organization, implementing social media networks will only enhance this pre-existing standard. Social media is inherently user generated as we have established with our Web 2.0 definition. If there is a culture of information sharing and strong working relationships between co-workers as well as between management and employees, Social media can facilitate the evolution of these relationships.
What are the risks in adopting such an approach?
Loss of Professionalism
The Ottawa citizen has a fantastic column called the “EX Files” that takes senior management in the Federal Government out of itself for a quick two page dissection. The EX Files have given a rare and entertaining insight into some of the risks lurking around the implementation of social media as an internal communications tool
Organizations in The System are hierarchical, which is to say they have a built-in and clearly defined pecking order. The hierarchy’s trappings and seniority are entrenched and supported by office systems such as e-mail. E-mail reinforces the hierarchy because all employees know that they must consider carefully what they are saying in their office e-mails and — more important — to whom they are saying it. (Ottawa EX Files)
People love gossip. When a form of communication is introduced that allows people to make public comments on their colleagues’ work, attire, partying habits, etc. problems can occur. Maintaining a professional virtual work environment can be challenging.
Loss of Control in the time of a crisis
Managing a crisis requires clear leadership defined at a central point within the team managing the crisis. This authority is then able to delegate to the rest of the team and thus to the parties involved in managing the crisis. In other words, one person has to be in charge.This simple fact completely undermines the inherent nature of social media – which is one of many authors, contributors or sculptors of the message / messages.
Social media flattens an organization’s management structure by decentralizing content creation, control of publishing rights and can ultimately lead to a dilution of the organization’s official position.The use of social media increases the chance of a distorted message.
Decrease in Productivity
This is the double edged sword of successful integration of social media to an internal plan. Should the employees really take to the new technology productivity may decline in the beginning. There is an ample amount of time consuming elements to setting up a user profile, writing on colleagues “walls” uploading vacation pictures, commenting on friends photos of pets and kids. This dip in productivity should be short lived if management has implemented proper guidelines surrounding the use of the new technology.
Establishing Guidelines – Minimize the risks
Without laying out some guidelines, decentralizing the control of information can be disastrous, hurtful and counterproductive. The essential component of implementing a successful social network for internal communications (and this holds true for any communications plan/tactic) is complete and total senior management buy-in and participation. This does not mean that senior management must spend their lunch hours managing their Gov-book profiles – it does mean that they need to have one, it means that they must make it clear what is appropriate information to approach them with through this channel, and it does mean that they must include the new internal environment in any media scanning service or function that the organizations currently make use of. The good news is this involves delegation. The communications department can pick up the bulk of this added responsibility. Most communications shops are already packaging daily news clippings for senior management to review. Any significant issues that are surfacing internally should be included in the daily media monitoring report.
Without this support, developing guidelines and imposing restrictions on an otherwise completely free technology will not carry the weight of the full organization – leading to partial implementation and inconsistencies throughout the network.
Re-evaluation of Positions and Reassigning Tasks and Duties
When the power to update organizational charts, phone numbers, feature articles and other such intranet content is shifted away from the central communications/IT department will the daily coding duties of the trusted web monkeys be diminished, or completely obliterated? What will happen to their jobs? How will they spend their day?
Here is a day in the life of the intranet Web coder:
9:00am – Check email inbox for new articles and updates
9:30am – Search the intranet for the pages that correspond to the required updates
10:00am – Make the changes, do the coding, fix the errors, update the phone numbers, etc.
10:30am – Upload changes to a development server for review and write emails to the clients asking for their final approval on the changes before uploading them to the live server
11:00am – Coffee break and wait for approvals
11:30am – Upload approved changes to the live server
12:00pm – Lunch
12:30pm – Repeat as necessary and search for broken links and code violations.
5:00pm – Go home.
Here is a day in the life of the re-positioned for social media intranet Web coder.
9:00am – Check email inbox for trouble shooting and assistance requests.
9:30am – Resolve requests
10:00am – Scan network for emerging issues
10:30am – Coffee Break
10:45am – Report on found issues
11:00am –Content Development
12:00pm – Lunch
12:30pm – Repeat above as necessary
5:00pm – Go home.
Notes on Government Application: Social Media and accessibility requirements as laid out by the Treasury Board
The Treasure Board of Canada has implemented a common look and feel standard for all Government of Canada Web sites. This set of standards known as CLF 2 (common look and feel 2) has recently been applied to all internal Web sites as well as public GOC Web sites. These standard are designed to ensure accessibility, search engine optimization, and a cohesive, brand building look to all official GOC Websites.
Using a third party platform like Facebook could come close to meeting many of the CLF 2 Web standards. These platforms tend to have a reasonable level of flexibility built into the program that would allow for the inclusion of the Canada word mark, for example. Questions begin to arise when the accessibility and security of these platforms is assessed. Recently, Facebook has addressed some concerns that their platform was not entirely accessible to the blind and visually impaired. [5] Use of such a platform would also require an interface in both official languages. Facebook France is currently in the beta testing stages and in the event of its release,[6] a fully French accessible interface will be available worldwide. This would provide the opportunity for the Federal Government to adopt such a platform for its own use.
Most third party Social Networking platforms have security features built into their interface, such as; closed or private groups/networks, user login prompts, limited profile access, etc. The real security issue that will surface around the use of a third party platform is what will happen to the users’ data? Will Facebook mine the GOC network pages and sell that information to advertisers through their Beacon program[7] ?
A simple (but not cheap) solution to the security and accessibility issues that surround the use of third party platforms is purchasing a program, (or developing a custom platform) and then bringing it inside of the organization’s firewall. This would give complete control of who can access the information and what is done with it to the network managers. eg. Community Server 2007, Advancing Insights
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