Matrix Management

Tweetcamp and the tools debate

Kevan Hall, CEO of Global Integration, follows yesterday’s post on ‘Tweetcamp and some underlying trends‘ with a question about the tools

TweetcampThere was an interesting discussion at this week’s Tweetcamp on whether it is enough simply to provide social media tools for communication, or whether you need to actively push the use of those tools into teams.  It seemed like the ‘techies’ were of the opinion that the tools were almost enough and that we should wait and see what emerges. Whilst this may work for earlier adopters like them, in business it could require more effort to make sure that these tools are actually being used.

Some organizations are choosing specific groups who have a compelling need for the tools, or an intact team where you can control the adoption of the tools, before rolling them out to a broader population.  It’s also received wisdom in many of our clients that you need to embed the workflow into the tool. Tools like IBM Connections are becoming the place you go to ‘do’ your work, rather than ‘additional’ social media.  The view there is, broadly, that people are already too busy to ‘do’ social media as an additional task, whereas if it becomes the place where you do your work, then people will embed it into their day-to-day operation.

So is it enough to just build something and they will come?  Or do we need to force people into using social media?

It’s interesting to see what people are actually starting to use social media for.  Profile pages seem to be well used, and form an extremely valuable source of information on who does what and information about individuals.  The tools that enable people to reach out and connect directly like instant messenger or Twitter are also well used.

Some other collaborative tools seem to take off much more slowly.

So here’s a question: what do people actually chose to share or do on social media (in a work context) within your organization?

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