Social Media and Corporate Culture

How do you think social media and social networking have changed us, as individuals?  How has it changed our business lives?  I explored this topic at AIIM last month, and want to reprise it here with a little more depth. 

So, basically, what I posit is that our business lives are measured by our  successful navigation of the corporate culture of an organization and its partners.  Culture is comprised of personal behavior, organizational behavior, business processes, business rules, risk management and other factors. 

How has social media changed what our organizations expect of us, and what they know about us? 

How can it change the way we interact, collaborate and make decisions? 

How are privacy and security concerns going to be addressed? 

Is there leadership in blazing this trail, or are most folks left to figure it out themselves?

Let me take this on methodically, and next week I will give you some ideas and inspiration for how to approach the topic in your organization.

Here are some immediate impacts on Business Processes that I see occurring as a result of more people having smartphones and mobile devices (md) at work:

• More business information will be pushed out in a format consumable by mobile devices.  Folks no longer rely on their laptop. 
• Social features like Comments, Tagging, Like allow business process participants to quickly respond to new information.
• 3G and WIFI change the connected world landscape.
• Processes can have location awareness built in.
• Process cycle time and decision cycle time will be compressed.
• On-Demand Drill to Details capability supports decision-making on the go.

So how will these things impact corporate culture?  Let’s look at several dimensions of corporate culture and see what the possibilities are.  The first dimension is for Transparency, and spans from extremely closed (very little public interaction) to very open and public.  This may be determined by how much the public knows about the internal workings of the organization.  Social media makes it difficult for organizations to be schizophrenic in a networked society.  For example, the company cannot espouse workers’ rights in a social forum while having lawsuits brought for rights violations – well they can try, but some connected person will find out and make it transparent.  The whole idea of insiders and whistleblowers is going to make for some very interesting novels.

The second dimension of corporate culture is Entrepreneurial vs Conservative.  This spans from the very conservative where no venture is undertaken without a complete business plan/project plan/risk assessment, to a very entrepreneurial organization where any good idea can be investigated for feasibility.  One way to consider this dimension is to think about how democratic the organization is or if it is very dictatorial.  Free flow of information is one factor, how open is the reporting solution?  Can everyone see everything (except confid and PII) or only reports for their department or workgroup?  Social media allows team members to share ideas and collaborate in unfettered ways.  This pressures organizations to become more innovative, supporting quicker adjustments and a results orientation.

Cooperative vs Competitive is the last dimension for our discussion, whether an organizations internal culture supports collaboration or is more cut-throat.  There will always be some measure of competitiveness – people want to be promoted, departments always want more budget, etc.  But, is the main way things get done characterized by working together or by individual effort?  Social media supports collaboration in a way no other technology does.  However, knowledge is power, and that gives an edge to the competitive.

There are other dimensions of organizational culture and collaboration that will have an impact on the adoption of social media as a business tool.  Next week, I will present some ideas of governance and implementation best practices to help you determine how to integrate social media and business intelligence in your organization.  Until then, keep thinking good bi thoughts.