Extending A Social Mindset Throughout Your Organization -- OR -- Does This Count as Social Media?

The short answer is; YES!  

And your BIG PR AGENCY and high-priced in-house counsel probably missed the opportunity.

Don’t be overly harsh with them, they’re trained to think in traditional and linear media models and modalities. But, make no mistake they are generally VERY good at performing within these traditional modalities.

Of course the problem is, we live in a very different and new business reality which even the largest PR agencies struggle to comprehend.  We're living and communicating in a true social biosphere now. Real people, real conversations in real time; that’s a social biosphere, and believe me it scares the hell out of your PR agency and in-house PR managers.

Not to worry, no one abandoned the postal press release overnight either, or the press release itself for that matter. There’s help out there, consultants like Outlaw Communications but more importantly look within your own organization as the following story illustrates.

In the social biosphere that is business today everything your organization does and says or is thought to have done or said or is perceived to have done or said along with anything anyone remotely connected to your organization has ever done or said, will count with someone somewhere. 

I’m exaggerating but only slightly to illustrate how important the seemingly most insignificant encounters can be to your organization’s social wellbeing.

I recently met with some folks from AFLAC in a mismanaged recruiting SNAFU gone horribly wrong, perpetrated by an outside consultant.  Ah, those horrible consultants, we’re always mucking up someone’s business. In this case it turns out to be true, well almost were it not for a socially tuned-in AFLAC recruiter who found and capitalized upon a social opportunity despite it being WAVED (Yes WAVED) in front of senior PR staffers.

At any rate after what rapidly descended into an experience worthy of Twitter Tattling, this single dedicated AFLAC representative took it upon herself to not only fix a situation but turn it into a social media opportunity for her company.

The traditional PR machine failed here and did not realize the potential social impact as an influencer began showing negative signs within AFLAC’s social biosphere. 

Another company representative, responsible mostly for recruiting, (how social is the recruiting function nowadays?), managed to recognize the potential damage already begun within AFLAC’s social biosphere and took immediate and successful steps to change the interaction. 

A socially healthy organization is much like any other healthy animal, the social mindset must be pervasive and inclusive, not because this is the future I see, it is but, because it is and will be and also happens to be the future I see and BIG PR continues to miss and ignore.

And if the fact that your traditional PR Agencies and in-house counsel, for which you spend tens of thousands of dollars monthly, is in complete denial about the social biosphere, doesn’t keep management up at night… you need to find other work for the sake of your shareholders and stakeholders.

Does Your Organization Suffer From Anti-Social Business Disorder – OR – HEY! Isn’t That The Opposite Of How A Socialized Business Behaves

Most organizations struggle valiantly and increasingly are being rewarded with some successes in the Social Biosphere. So how do you spot a business headed in the absolute wrong BUTT-BACKWARD direction?

You might think it would be easy; look for legacy industries, old business models and older companies run by old guys, like me. You might think this but, you wouldn’t be right, in fact the age or industry, business model and management have little to do with how various organizations embrace new technology and business processes in general and our Social Biosphere in particular. As the old saying goes, “Actions speak louder than rhetoric and corporate media kits.”

Harley Davidson, began operating in the Social Biosphere, within its own Social Ecosystems 25 years ago and has been doing so ever since.  Interestingly enough the timing just happens to coincide with Harley’s huge resurgence in popularity, revenue and profit, quality assurance and everything else businesses strive to attain. Hmmm, perhaps there is something to this Social Biosphere model after all. 

Apple has been behaving and conducting business as a social entity since the “Think Different,” days and the return of Saint Jobs. And despite being counted out by industry experts year after year, Apple leads and thrives within the Social Biosphere by focusing on its key social ecosystems.

Ford Motor Company is another example of a mature (and boy that is putting it more than kindly) business model, management philosophy, and management team.  Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford proves every day that an old dog (the company, not Scott) has a lot of new tricks at least within the Social Biosphere.  Well done Scott!

So how do we find who’s missing the social media social business boat and more importantly why should any of us care?

The why care part is simple; eventually, and the consequences will only multiply over time,  organizations that maintain a willfully anti-social business policy will lose capitalization, customers  and credibility within their market ecosystems first and later within the Social Biosphere as a whole.

I call this the THREE DEADLY C’S, again it’s Capitalization, Customers and Credibility.

Capitalization means as a shareholder, your investment is already as good as gone, it’s only a question of how long you want to watch it shrink, dwindle and die before you take your capital somewhere, well more capital.

Customers cannot ever rely on these businesses to remain in business; in fact, anti-social businesses are all having a “going out of business sale,” even if management doesn’t realize it. 

And finally any organization so willfully opposed to embracing business processes, technologies and most importantly, unable to acknowledge the reality of the marketplace they participate in cannot possibly be taken seriously by anyone. How can these businesses retain credibility?

So who are these corporate culprits who seem determined to destroy our capital, screw their loyal customers and become the next great networking event keynote “Bad Example?” 

Unfortunately the number is legion; fortunately it’s shrinking daily, as more businesses wake-up from their digital commas and realize the Social Biosphere is not merely a reality but THE reality and most importantly THEIR reality.

Here’s a clue; if you encounter a business or organization (political parties and politicians come to mind here on the organization side) that uses technology to separate itself from its stakeholders in any way whatsoever; you may have a business suffering Anti-Social Business Disorder. 

Now you may simply be the victims of an obtuse, unknowledgeable  BIG PR budget and / or group of agency social media experts.  Check your PR budgets and this should give you an indication which you’re dealing with here.

If you think you’ve found an Anti-Social Business, you need to RUN FAR and FAST from these idiots, do not work for them, do not buy their stock or financial products and most certainly do NOT support them as a customer.

Think of businesses you deal with that use technology to ensure you’ll never get close to anyone with any responsibility or accountability within the organization.  And ask yourself does this seem social, healthy, and modern while embracing the technology capable of bringing customers and companies together or does this seem the exact opposite of all these things?

I’ll give you one example from a recent case study I presented in a lecture to SMB leaders recently.

Express Scripts, an online mail-order pharmacy and poster child for Anti-Social Business.  Everything about their business processes leverages technology to ensure customers and stakeholders are kept at arms length from any real decision making power structures within the organization.  And the harder one pushes for contact the harder Express Scripts processes; model, culture and staff push stakeholders away.

Is there hope for companies like Express Scripts, of course.  Given proper treatment and a willingness to both accept and embrace reality, anti-social companies like Express Scripts can be saved. However, it’s not likely given their current senior management who seem intent on destroying not just Express Scripts but having a real good whack at an entire ecosystem marketplace.

What Makes a Brand Socially Successful – OR – When a Brand Transcends Becoming Lifestyle

A recent discussion among Social Media marketers about Apple’s success in the social media space got me thinking.  Not about Apple’s SM success, that depends on how and who is measuring, like most things in life.

No, I thought about Apple’s success as a brand and realized it past successful company / brand many years ago and somewhere along the way became a lifestyle, for lack of better term.

Many brands struggle, are posers and spend billions to convince you they fit with some certain type of lifestyle; Apple has somehow managed to become that lifestyle.  How?

Simple it’s a social business and has been behaving as such for at least 10 years or more.  Apple’s business model and, at times its very survival, depended upon various communities, music, video, printing, art, graphics, education… all distinct social ecosystems operating within the larger Social Biosphere and Apple has devoted itself to driving, participating and shaping the conversations in all these ecosystems (marketplaces) for years. 

And VOILA… we’re left with a great example of what is possible when a business is ready to break the rules and embrace the social biosphere.  The ultimate socially engineered company! 

It’s a tough road to follow and not a year used to go by without various industry “experts” foretelling Apple’s demise.  Apple stuck to focusing on being social and well, the rest, as they say, is history – Social Biosphere style.

10 Things You Should Know About Social Media -- OR -- What Your PR Team Isn’t Telling You About Social Media

It’s Brave New World

Okay, I’ve heard the hype and helped hype the hype.  But seriously, social media is only the tip of iceberg and if you think your business is immune – I refer you to the historical lessons of the RMS Titanic.  You absolutely, positively cannot ignore this social media thing.

More Than a Feeling

Classic rock anthems aside, social media is evolving into much more than a communications channel or medium. It is well on its way to become the latest business environment. I call it the Social Biosphere, because this environment will encompass every business and cultural ecosystem that exists.

Don’t Panic

No matter what your 12 year-old niece’s friend thinks about your socialized business processes – do not listen to her unless your target market is 12 year-old females.  If it is, hire your niece’s friend, she knows more about social media than any high-priced PR agency.

One Treat per Child - Only

Ever hear the expression, “If everything is important, then nothing is important.”  It’s something none of us want to hear let alone consider or accept but, we cannot have it all and the Social Biosphere is proof to this maxim. Regardless of how much you leverage the Social Biosphere, whether you’re a simple blogger with the occasional Tweet or you’re a 100% socially integrated business, you absolutely must choose only those conversations you have the resources to dominate.

It’s a Conversation, Not a Lecture

Despite all the expensive messaging you may have, the Social Biosphere runs on a two-way symmetrical information model.  Remember rule three and Don’t Panic; just because it’s a real conversation doesn’t mean you cannot dominate your chosen ecosystems within the Social Biosphere.  You will have to earn your dominance through a meritocracy of ideas.  Don’t talk at them, converse with them, have a better idea.

This is True Social Darwinism

Bad ideas may triumph from time to time but, badly presented ideas will always fail in the Social Biosphere. Remember it’s a conversation.

Break the Rules

The Social Biosphere is many things, as many things as there are participants – it’s a consolidation both in space and time of the mob. If you want to influence the mob you need to understand what motivates them, what they fear and what void they are looking to fill.  Legacy media, PR, advertising and marketing communications thinking will not serve you well here – this is a brave new world. Knowing the top 50 bloggers or “mommy” sites won’t really make your bones in the Biosphere.

Be Market Driven

I could go on and on about how Herbert Stein  sits securely in the pantheon of economic assholes along with fellow supply-side fathers Hume, Hamilton, Swift and Smith. Suffice to say the Social Biosphere is a market driven environment.  You cannot simply generate your message and push it into the Biosphere and expect success.  You need to get to know your market and tailor your conversation to what they want to talk about.

Are Your Ears Burning?

They should be because someone somewhere is already talking about you and / or hosting the conversations you need to dominate.  Relax, this is a good thing.  It means the heavy lifting is mostly done for you; all you need is an invitation to the conversation.  So put on your party dress practice your lines get off the wall and find those conversations.

Never Wear a Condom

How can you spot an organization with AOD?  For that matter what is AOD?  AOD or Anti-Social Organizational Disorder occurs when any organization uses technology to keep stakeholders away.  Companies who utilize automated phone attendants, no-reply email addresses or won’t let you contact them directly for customer inquires – these are anti-social companies or organizations and will fall prey to the three deadly Cs of the Social Biosphere.  They will lose credibility, capital and customers as the Social Biosphere evolves and becomes a more mature business environment allowing stakeholders to easily shift to a more pleasant or “Socially Acceptable” competitive company.

CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS AND SOCIAL MEDIA –OR—DON’T PLAY DIGITAL DEFENSE

Here’s a great primer and basic advice article from Chris Syme on using Twitter as a crisis engagement tactical channel.  http://cksyme.org/?p=602 It’s well worth reading and heeding.

Chris makes some excellent points in the article, Three Must-Haves for Using Twitter in a Crisis.  Outlaw Communications specializes in unconventional communications and IW (Information Warfare) and I’ve learned if you intend to achieve your goals in any crisis engagement within the social biosphere you must maintain communications across the maximum number of channels your tactical resources allow. 

Use Twitter and FaceBook and Tumblr and YouTube and Google+, comment on real-time events, post on blogs and wikis, and…. you get the idea, be everywhere you need to be.  Never overextend or attempt to utilize more channels than your resources allow but within those tactical constraints be prepared to engage with every stream your audience engages. 

In most cases you’ll find the majority of the conversations you need to influence and take an active role in guiding occur in one to three of the major social media streams or within isolated industry-specific social environments.

Engagements within the Social Biosphere are quantum in nature; each and every communication carries with it the potential for something to occur.  The majority amount to absolutely nothing however; those few that take shape and become conversations often produce massively disproportionate effects, compared with their origin communication, upon targeted organizations and individuals. Remember every negative Tweet has the potential to topple your organization but very few become conversations of any note.

We call these viral marketing campaigns when they are positive and social media crisis when they are not.  Regardless of the nature and tone of the conversations, something beyond your control causes a single communication based on some trigger event (s) to capture the interest of other social media users and becomes a “big deal.” 

Chris Syme mentions monitoring Twitter streams as part of your daily communications process, an excellent idea to identify those potential conversations before they become crisis.  As with the actual crisis engagement I suggest monitoring as many social streams as your resources allow and your audience utilizes for the same reasons, identifying potential issues before they become crisis engagements. Monitoring also allows you to participate in various conversations within your Social Biosphere before you need operate within those same social streams in crisis mode.

The post-crisis engagement is an excellent time introduce new messaging and begin brand building or rebuilding.  In addition to stakeholders’ attentions focused on the fallout and plans to avoid future crisis, it’s important to remember you have your audiences’ attentions.  Introduce new messaging and beginning the rebuilding process while you have this attention.

As with any crisis engagement, crisis within the Social Biosphere is essentially a messaging exercise.  Something happened that should not have, here’s what we’re doing to fix this event and here’s the steps we’ve taken to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.

Like chess and the Social Biosphere itself, within such a simple operational definition there exist endless possibilities for both strategic and tactical actions.  Make sure your engagement supports a sound business goal and is driven by good process

A Case for Information Operations at the Ops Level – OR – Developing an Environmental Operational Capability

Last week I attended a Northrop Grumman sponsored EW (Electronic Warfare) briefing and event and realized just how pervasiveness the digital and communications have become. Moreover I see how digital communications is grinding its way to the operational level. Once the sole purview of engineers and their jamming transmitters a Colonel summed up his views on EW thusly,  "Everything has computers now, so as far I'm concerned it's all cyberwarfare."

While we still need to ensure those missiles can't find our friendly targets it struck me how we also need to make sure the Twitterverse doesn't see our operators coming and the best way to do that is to expand EW beyond jamming and include operational-level training in social media.

For the last couple hundred years we’ve understood war as being an occupation for and the province of professional military personnel.  It’s been said that war is, “Old folks talking while the young die.”  As cold and callus as that sounds it captures the split between those who engage in direct action against an enemy, warriors, and those who talk: officials, politicians, diplomats and the like.

Technology changes everything eventually, and so must our worldview evolve to encompass the new realities technology sometimes forces upon us. While it’s true we’ve had military personnel dedicated to word-war (if you will) since WWII, largely under the PsyOps umbrella, the proliferation of technology and specifically social media necessitates the development of information operational capabilities at the operational level.  We need to bring information operational capabilities to the combat level in addition to traditional information channels, political and diplomatic.

We need to look at information operations from an environmental perspective, much as we would any operating environment. The proliferation of information sharing (social media being the latest evolution) has created enough of a critical mass that we cannot simply leave the information operations activities entirely to the political machine.  The operators must also master the information environment.

Social media continues to blur and blend the boundaries between what we once thought of as two distinct and separated environments; the physical and digital worlds. While I agree with many operators that warfare is the ultimate direct action of do what I say or die. The potential for operational impact from social channels is far too high for the operators to ignore or leave in the hands of politicians.  I wouldn’t let my Congress person pack my chute or check my Drager or plot a course to a tactical objective.

For example, when SEAL Team VI took down Bin Laden, Abbottabad residents were tweeting the arrival of the Chinooks before the Stealth Hawks landed.  Had these enemies better coordinated this social intelligence –things may have been far more challenging for our operators.

It is simply no longer possible to separate the information operations from the physical – think Wiki Leaks – the impact of the release of these documents had real impact upon physical operations.

So we need to focus on building both intelligence capabilities and direct action capabilities within the information operating environment – exactly the same way we develop these capabilities for all operating environments.  See, Air, Land, and now social cyberspace.

Does Social Media Need Communicators At All? -- OR -- OMFG Marketers Are Killing Everything!

After several conversations this week with fellow marketers about our changing roles within the Social Biosphere, I’ve come to the conclusion it may be time for us to step aside, find honest work and help save the World in the process.

Is it too soon to throw out this curveball; in a true Social Biosphere , social operating environment (SOE) or socialized business environment, if you prefer, what is the real need for marketing of any type, in fact in such an environment isn’t marketing exposed for damage it does?

Here’s what I mean, in the Social Biosphere our consumers' needs and wants should be more transparent, as should any stakeholder interactions with organizations.  With all this openness and honesty floating around it begs the question, why do we need to market?

It seems we’ve come to accept, without question, our present supply-side business model even though it cannot be sustained and even though it’s killing everything including us and our World.

So, leveraging a group of technologies that, in theory at least, allow for open and transparent communications between all stakeholders should allow us to produce only what is actually needed and wanted by consumers or to put it a more MBA-esque sort of way, foster a demand-side business environment, which by definition is a much more sustainable World business model.

In short the Social Biosphere, if left alone by marketers, could help change our entire business / economic model from a World-Killing, supply-side to a Holy-Crap-Our-Kids-Might-Actually-Have-A-Shot-At-Life, demand-side one and save us all and our planet in the bargain.

Or we, as marketers, can figure out how best to leverage social media technologies to ensure we continue to produce billions of tons of useless garbage each and every month and figure out how to push this crap on to consumers who don’t need it or want it.

Kinda makes you think about our role in the big picture, n’est pas?

Now, I understand this assertion requires a bit of an academic detachment as well as a philosophical leap of faith from our current brainwashing, Matrix-like supply-side thinking and, it’s nearly impossible for us to completely escape our cultural bias towards a pro-marketing worldview.  Not to mention it’s tough to think of ourselves, as mild-mannered marketers, as being fundamental to the World-Killing process but here we sit at a nexus point in history, fully aware and fully conscious of the choices we make.

When I think of all the creative power I’ve dedicated to pushing products on consumers over the years it almost makes me laugh, if it wasn’t such a sad waste of energy.

Here’s a few examples of products I believe illustrate what I’m saying, or to put it another way, are or were produced and then push-marketed to create demand among consumers.

PCs, Barbie Dolls, Cigarettes, SUVs, Yachts, Golf Carts, Fast Food, Mini-Vans, anything that begins with a lower case “i” and is followed by an existing noun, disposable pens, cordless phones, Joysticks, Xbox, anything made by Microsoft, any one or all of the 6Tb backup drives sitting on my desk, wireless routers, Webcams, TVs, DVDs, BluRay discs and players, halogen lamps, wingback chairs, teak bookshelves, staplers, 7 hole punches, leather bound portfolios and briefcases, cross-trainers, running shoes, biking shoes, court shoes, basketball shoes, turf shoes, cleats, footballs, field hockey sticks, Gator Aid, 25 year-old scotch, cranberry vodka, honestly I could go on all day.

For me the question really is, what products are not supply-side-market push garbage. 

I’m not arguing that some of these products don’t bring pleasure or joy to humans; I’m just saying they’re not manufactured based on existing market needs or any real need at all.  They were manufactured to fill that “gaping-void” within, which no product or service can ultimately fill.

Marriage, A True Historical Perspective - OR - Yet Another Inconvenient Truth

Marriage, Marriage Equality, Republican Party, conservative, fundamental religion, catholic, Romney    

I know I’ll take some heat from conservatives on this but, who really gives a rat’s ass. Marriage equality seems one of those polarized political topics that simply will not go away. 

Here’s my attempt to add some historical and socio-cultural facts to the mix. 

In this exchange Fox’s Chris Wallace get's owned by Ted Olson and shows his utter lack of knowledge of the history and purpose of marriage as he states, "WALLACE: So society doesn't get to say that marriage should be between a man and a woman, even though society has said that for thousands of years." 

Marriage, as we think of it today has its origins near the end of Charlemagne’s rule about 814.  The word “marriage” didn’t even exist until the late middle ages, sometime around 1250 – 1300 and wasn’t something much more than a spoken agreement between individuals before 1545, sometimes witnessed or recorded but more often not.

Some of the earliest records of what has come to be called marriage date back to Mesopotamia from Hammurabi’s Code, crafted somewhere around 1790 BCE and consisting of 282 laws. The Code addressed all manner of life issues from river dunking through eye poking and teeth smashing.

Hammurabi even took a swipe at early healthcare reform, “If during an unsuccessful operation a patient dies, the arm of the surgeon must be cut off.”  Even Fox News doesn’t advocate for the systematic butchering of incompetent doctors.

Reaching far back to antiquity what we think of today as “marriage” was nothing more than a contract to secure inheritance rights and demonstrate that a woman was the exclusive property of a single man, and thus was between a man and woman.  Not because “God” decreed it to be thus or even because a culture thought it should be so but, simply because the nobility needed to ensure 1) their children would inherit their property and power and 2) to ensure their children, were actually their children.

To put it another way, marriage has always been a legal contract based on the needs of society at the time in every culture in which it existed.  Marriage is a voluntary contractual phenomena designed to ensure the participating parties have proper access to the rights and laws of the cultural in which they live. It is not and never has been a religious or moral institution.

The first inklings of this notion of marriage entwined with some form of the divine came from bishop Ignatius of Antioch around 110, "It becomes both men and women who marry, to form their union with the approval of the bishop, that their marriage may be according to God, and not after their own lust."  Ignatius also felt, “For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist; and whosoever does not confess the testimony of the cross, is of the devil; and whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts, and says that there is neither a resurrection nor a judgment, he is the first-born of Satan.”

Fortunately for the majority of America’s non-Catholic population, some 238,739,200 of us, no one is proposing a constitutional amendment to declare more than 81% us the Anti-Christ or Satan.

As an interesting footnote; the above doctrine makes Mitt Romeny an anti-Christ and presumably unacceptable to most Republicans as a presidential candidate, of course, the doctrine also makes most Republicans anti-Christs as well.

To put it another way any person who believes marriage is a “Christian” institution must also believe more than 81% of Americans are anti-Christs; sorry but it’s one of those inescapable logic things.  

In our modern American culture marriage is an entre to the basic societal power unit whereby citizens are guaranteed various protections and rights. To deny any group the basic right to voluntarily enter into this fundamental power unit is to deny members of that group their basic right to participate in our culture.  It is nothing more than a modern form of banishment. 

Additionally when carefully studied and analyzed there is absolutely no historical evidence that marriage has ever served a different purpose throughout history in any culture, that is until now, when some fundamental religious groups are attempting to use marriage to exclude a group of Americans from basic rights and create a second class layer of our culture. 

The irony is most of those opposed to marriage equality do not qualify as “Christian” by the person whose Holy definition of marriage their arguments relies upon.