If you can't fathom how Twitter can help your company, read on.
When a student opened fire on the Virginia Tech campus last year, the school had no systematic way to alert those in harm's way. In the days that followed, organizations nationwide began asking, "Does my organization have the ability, in a few minutes, in the event of a crisis, to notify everyone involved?" What if fire, an earthquake, an explosion, or a hurricane rendered our email and phone systems useless? How would people receive information critical to their lives?
Today organizations are considering how to systematically use micro-messaging, an emerging communications channel, made possible by Twitter and tools like it, to connect with the people they care about most. It allows organizations to reach people's desktops, laptops, and devices already in pockets and purses without any dependency on local email servers or a phone tree.
In a few compact sentences, these utilities can quickly and effectively convey text or image messages across an extended enterprise, a decentralized workforce, a dispersed campus, a community of practice, a small group of friends, or just one person who needs to know.
Also referred to as micro-blogging, micro-sharing tools prove enterprise software need not be boring and difficult. It can be easy, engaging, portable, and rewarding.
With the unveiling of enterprise-focused Twitter cousins such as Yammer, Socialtext Signals, Socialcast, and Present.ly, managers can now bring micro-sharing capabilities in-house with the security of working behind the firewall to protect confidential information and the potential for explicit links back into enterprise-strength systems.
Enterprise micro-sharing can help address the dueling dilemmas
organizations face -- needing to move knowledge where people need it
now as they work through business processes, while relieving worries
and fears information is leaking out of the organization too easily.
Although some execs ban
these tools and consumer counterparts widely available today, doing so
leaves their organizations out of an important loop encompassing
customers, partner networks and, even, families. Human Resources Executive has featured these tools on their front page several times in the last few year and last summer, technology market consultancy Gartner added micro-sharing to its list of technologies that will transform business over the next two to five years.
Twitter, a public micro-sharing network used by many early adopters,
has become an integral part of my own professional practice and
personal brain-building. I use it to connect, share, and discover
information far beyond any other network. I've grown to realize the
field might better be thought of as micro-learning where the
conduit is tiny and the lessons spread are vast. Across an enterprise
-- be it around the globe or down the hall -- the learning potential is endless, while the opportunities to connect to knowledge are exploding in number and variety.
I use it in a way similar to how I touch base with my friends and
family, briefly and frequently, and I now extend that level of care to involve my coworkers and business partners. I can find someone to
review an article as effortlessly as I can offer personal experience to a colleague on how to select a webinar platform or which organizations have successfully launched their own brand Wikipedia. This is all akin to the magic of open-source software, created through public grassroots collaboration.
Whether I'm working remotely or onsite, I find micro-sharing
(micro-learning?) mediates a conversation where what we're learning is not merely exchanged. Knowledge is extended, transformed, reshaped, and built on as we actually create new trains of thought.
See if any of these other benefits would prove valuable to your extended organization and your developing communications plans.
Individualized Updates
The meeting in the Wintergreen room moved to Culpepper... The
sandwich cart won't be downstairs today... The supplier has only two
mini-laptops left... Reviews are due on Friday... A colleague can't
make the pitch in the morning so I'm on... Email is sent... Directions are scribbled on paper affixed to a door... A high priority phone message is left... I wade through fourteen screens. Ugh. Everyday stuff.
More common than occasional safety announcement, companies have
operational updates that need to reach people at certain times to
coordinate the dance that is an organization. There's information each participant in an organizational ecosystem needs to learn to
successfully help that enterprise succeed. This information can be
broadcast to those needing a reminder about the speaker in the
auditorium (until it becomes habit that's the place to be Friday
afternoons), narrowcast to groups like those whose meeting locale has
changed or directed to individuals who have paperwork being processed.
Although most messages are generated by people (for instance someone
from HR, accounting, at the front desk or in legal), some can be
automated to inform people at critical times. An order processing
system can kick out events and exceptions. A benefits system can signal coverage changes and enrollment deadlines. A learning management system can prompt it's time for a certification renewal or a newly available online course. Micro-sharing systems offer unified access for information relevant to each of us, one at a time and all at the same time.
Yet that's still only half of the story for organizational
communication. I can follow news about my meetings, my paperwork or my provisions and I can also -- here's where it gets exciting -- (at my own peril) select to be blissfully ignorant. We are far more attentive when we can actively choose to pay attention to what matters to us, and we feel the most empowered when we can select to organize our lives in ways that don't overwhelm us and actually create value. Micro-sharingcan be:
Me-centered. When individuals, rather than senders or suppliers, choose who to and how to
trail interesting people, groups or even favorite key words, it heralds the beginning of a Network of Me. As needs and interests change over time, messaging systems let us adjust our inputs and conversations quickly. The network becomes a distributed relevancy mechanism to reach me wherever I am and on my own terms.
Free-market. Offer me information that matters to me, and I'll follow what you have to say. Spit out junk, and I will stop the flow of information to the device in my hand or the screen in front of me. Instead, I'll relegate it to the more cumbersome systems, available in the background, and look at them only when I have extra time.
Borderless options. There is a nothing to stop an organization from also publishing (or even just syndicating their micro bursts) to the intranet, communications wiki, personal dashboards, or even an electronic ticker tape running through the lobby.
Nestled between the big blocks called work, micro-sharing enables a
people-focused value network and truly modern supply chain. Everyday
stuff.
Collective Intelligence
A teammate goes to a conference and promises to share highlights
in real-time... Anyone know the source of this stat I heard on my way
into work?... I want to include customer stories in a whitepaper I'm
writing... Is there a way the spreadsheet template can provide mean
rather than average?... I'm new around here and wonder if anyone could use my expertise... My stuff and your stuff, together.
Too frequently organizational knowledge-sharing mirrors the
news-cycle society around us, in which we share the highs and lows,
ignoring the ordinary stuff in the middle. It's in that middle ground
people make sense of the work done around them, understand how we can
play a part to help fulfill the vision, and know where we can turn to
find the help we need. It's the middle stuff that's truly interesting
and helps us connect with one another.
One message I saw said, "You all make me feel like I'm always
surrounded by the most brilliant people on earth." Another said, "I can get an answer to practically any question within minutes!" When we were beside one another as we did the work, we conveyed the information flow with every breath. Now to get smarter, we must connect intentionally.
Although receiving news from the enterprise meme-stream helps us work within the systems around us, learning with and from the people around us (physically or virtually in our space) increases organizational value.
Information we glean from one another exhibits bird-like flocking behavior,
joining with other information that adds more value to it, creating
clusters of concepts with the capacity to become something stronger
than we can come up with alone.
Effortless-discovery. Learning often entails asking people how to do things. The trouble is, no matter our age, we customarily ask the person closest to us rather than someone known to have the right answer. Micro-sharing helps us reach the right people without even requiring us to know who they are. You can also enlist help en masse by asking large groups of people to focus on the same issue for a short burst of time to quickly bring about a creative solution.
Far-reaching collaboration. Most micro-sharing services require only an Internet connection so your colleagues and stakeholders in Australia, Ireland, Russia, Mexico and North Carolina can communicate, cooperate, and share information at the same time. Adding business partners, investors and customers in the learning mix no longer requires complex planning.
Culture-trickle. By identifying a few key influencers,
new hires can follow ephemeral information and vetted practices can be shared easily and in real-time with little burden on a designated
guide. A directory of personable resident experts, followed through
micro-sharing with one click, makes targeted communication more
efficient. Because these tools record exchanges, other people can watch how a concept, plan or project evolves.
In conjunction with individuals' personal stream of reflections and
observations, possibly with a link to a source for additional detail,
the intelligence we gather and share becomes transparent and available to everyone. Organization power. My stuff and your stuff, together.
Social Seaming
Liz in benefits rocks... I need more sleep... This project is
going to change the world... Extra sandwiches in Culpepper (not
everyone showed for the meeting)... Who borrowed my stapler?... My
kid's sick, heading home, ping me there. Stuff in between.
How we feel influences our productivity in both subtle and obvious
ways. Something fills the moments between doing our work and reading
all the lame emails preventing us from reading messages that matter. It contributes to us feeling on target or out of sorts. If those empty
"thanks" and "lights on in the parking lot" notes moved to a micro-sharing system, one where we could choose to follow based on the quality of posts or the interest we had in what someone said, we'd probably free up enough time to contribute to the flow, too, and get back to feel on.
These slender messages are interstitial; they lie in and fill the
seams of organizations. The threads help us collectively construct
understanding, foster new connections and grow existing bonds, making
for more agile perspectives, tighter teams, and resilient morale.
Detail intimacy. As organizations and society-at-large dismantle boundaries between personal and work life, they enrich corporate cultures as well as foster greater productivity and loyalty from people who have long-dreaded leaving their private life in the parking lot as they walked through the door. Micro-sharing, the technological equivalent of water-cooler chat, offer us clues into those around us, leading us to help one another because we know and trust one another. It's in the little learning moments where we're reminded Jeff isn't only a guy in product development, but a parent with a daughter about the same age as my son. Clients frequently tell me they have learned more about their coworkers and customers from their micro-messages and social media profiles than they have from working together for years.
Social serendipity. From technical information to
breaking news, from what my friends are thinking about to what I need
to be looking at and thinking about. These tools work similarly to how we converse while passing one another in the hallway, representing a live ecosystem that shifts from moment to moment, where it's easier, faster and more effective for us to brain dump as events happen in a live and ongoing environment.
Life-stream immediacy. If you're thinking, "...but my people have real work to do," ask yourself this question: In the two minutes they have between a phone call and a report, would it be better for them to be sharing what they learned on the call or asking for insight for the report, rather than doodling, making a shopping list, or checking on their fantasy football spread? People need down time, change of pace time, rhythm of the day time, and for those of us who have discovered a gold mine in their micro-messages, we've been able to stay on task and gain a little peace. In-between.
Organizations are human creations and they change as people change.
They adapt to serve social needs. Real-world knowledge sharing is
social, business, and technical all rolled into one. An enterprise is
an ecosystem of various parts all working together, even when they
don't know exactly how, and offering a simply way to reach the parts
that doesn't hamper the work getting on already can help us make great change. Micro-blogging is the capillary system.
Poet Nikki Giovanni said at the memorial service for those at Virginia Tech,
"[we] embrace our own and reach out with open heart and hand to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think, and not quite what we want to be."
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Marcia Conner >> www.marciaconner.com >> @marciamarcia is an enterprise learning and social media analyst and a 20-year veteran of the enterprise technology market. She is Senior Enterprise Strategist for Pistachio Consulting.
I'm a voracious learner. In addition to reading magazines, books, blogs, tweets, and faces, I persistently look for patterns, connections, anomalies and what's new. I tolerated school only because it was where my friends were and because occasionally I could talk with adults who seemed to know a bit about topics that might someday matter.
The Internet's debut seemed better suited for my unmitigating curiosity. The sites I tunneled to represented people with knowledge and perspective I could learn from around the clock. My brainspan soared. Still, I knew there was more, locked inside people's heads, unfolding in the little moments between the times they took to post something profound.
Although my professional life often focuses on helping organizations understand learning across generations, my personal time is spent testing my theories in my own social environment, with my colleagues, with my family, and sometimes with those in line at the market or boarding a plane.
My real-world lab validates ample research people are learning from one another all the time. While we learn some details, theorems, and history from people who are school teachers, corporate trainers and college professors, more than 75% of what we learn comes from experiences outside of any formal education program and from people we know outside the walls of any class.
It was from this perspective I felt disoriented as a perspective client used Compete Inc.'s analysis of what people do on Facebook as proof (proof?) it's not a place where people learn. The manager was echoing nonsense I hear from educators and business people alike who argue social networking does not constitute learning and that a platform like Facebook is too immature to foster authentic education.
Is it even possible to look through a personal profile or status update and not at least learn something? Do people still believe only big heavy formal intentional topics count?
A highschool student sees what his friends did last weekend. A college student reads about and then signs on to a rebuilding trip in a hurricane-damaged city. A genNext employee discovers a conference where she can market the company. A boomer businessman finds a group of fellow entrepreneurial spirits. And a parent watches over her children without intruding into their lives. Each finds a place and a space on Facebook to learn.
Facebook provides a compelling outlet for people who enjoy learning, and it helps those seeking something else to accidentally and informally learn along the way.
As we build relationships with other people, we tap into their networks of knowledge and sense, creating learning webs, making our compound knowledge more valuable than compound interest.
If you're still of the mindset that social media doesn't foster deep or wide learning, consider Tom Kosnik, who teaches Global Entrepreneurial Marketing in the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and has given Facebook a pivotal place in his work on the Global Leaders, Entrepreneurs, and Altruists Network (GLEAN). Although the network was launched in 1993, not until Facebook was there an infrastructure to help team members across the globe work together for the common good.
Facebook has enabled:
1. Large numbers of members to meet one another individually.
2. Rapid survey research among the extended network.
3. Recent graduates to connect with employers looking for talent.
4. Organizing live learning events around the world.
Still not concrete enough for you? Medical Central is Elsevier's community of medical students, researchers and professionals who come together on Facebook to share resources and exchange ideas. Posting videos of surgical procedures and blogs with breaking medical news, participants also learn together using more traditional medical textbooks and medical journals in modern ways.
Or how about the work of Hal Richman, who started the Convergence of Social and Business Networking group on Facebook to explore the learning he was seeing all around him. Early on he conducted a survey and 81% of group members said they like to merge their social and business worlds and 93% said they expected or aspired to meet people they will network and collaborate in the future. One qualitative response captured the essence of many others with, "It is important that business contacts get to see the real you. In that way you present a more rounded and credible personality who is more likely to engage others." Discussion topics were thoughtful and revealing, helping me as a group member to learn about how others were grappling with important emergent themes.
When Kimberly Samaha of the Bordeaux Energy Colloquium launched the Facebook group Sustainable Energy Futures to promote energy advances in developing nations, she hoped to gain the same sort of momentum as the Convergence group, and as a member of it too, she linked the two. Using some of the native capabilities of Facebook she introduced us to innovations in solar, biomass and hydro energy, not something many of the people in our group would or could have easily done on their own.
Young people are making these leaps, too.
A study of kids 9-17 by Grunwald Associates showed those using social network sites like Facebook are using social tools collaboratively, creatively, with specific project outcomes in mind, and they develop more complex and learning-related skills as their purposes change.
That probably plays well at Amherst College where only 1% of first-year students have landlines, and 99% have Facebook accounts.
I'm not advocating Facebook be used as a full-fledged classroom replacement system (yet) with all the bells, whistles, distractions, and seclusion those spaces afford. I'm also not so certain I've seen any one of those garner the, "getting to know one another first" authenticity that fosters face-to-face-quality trust that mitigates posturing. I'll likely update my stance as new Facebook applications fill gaps and make the software a functional formal learning platform.
The power of the social graph (your social network and more) is that we observe people in new contexts, we reconnect in a visceral way with old friends and we see the potential for mobilizing like-minds for learning, amusement and even social good.
It's time educators and business people embrace Facebook as part of a larger learning ecosystem supporting distributed learning, in real-time, for real-life, and rather than continue to talk about all that it's not, consider all the advantages looking us in the face today.
On a drizzly day in Madison Wisconsin, several hundred of my classmates stood in line on Bascom Hill waiting to audition for bit parts in the Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School. Although I was nowhere near the set months later, and this entire event took place decades ago, I still hear Rodney's voice in my minds-ear whenever I witness someone giving learning no respect.
The July/August edition of Fast Company provided a recent example. In Repackaging History: The Battle of Gettysburg, an article touting the National Park's new modernized museum and visitors center, aimed to get people to stay longer and spend more, vice president of external relations for the Gettysburg Foundation, Elliot Gruber, said:
"Most people aren't visiting to learn. They want to have an experience, to be immersed in something."
While I applaud Mr. Gruber for learning enough about immersive experiences to talk about them, I was still shaking my head when Brent Schlenker blogged what I was thinking:
"Mr. Gruber do you REALLY think ANYONE comes to Gettysburg for anything other than LEARNING? What you've done is simply make true learning possible for your guests... ALL of your guests. Multimedia exhibits and movie-inspired storytelling give your guests exactly what they need in order to learn. Did you expect that before this people could simply walk out onto the battle field with a brochure and learn about a deeply complex and divisive historical event?"
It's hard for me to imagine Mr. Gruber doesn't believe deep down that all of his guests are learners. Even if a "Disneyfication of History" firm is spreading fairy dust over the battlefield, only some of his guests carry a wallet, only some are history buffs, and only some are there for the thrill.
So much of any learning experience is to learn from the mistakes of the past. Forget that larger purpose and as a species we're sunk. If experiential repackaging is what's going to lure people back to a park that's in large part a memorial to fallen soldiers, I applaud every ounce of the effort. Let's just not lose site of why we want them back.
Janet Kamien of The Museum Group said, "The public still cares about whether they're being told the truth." In what could be touted as the ultimate informal learning business, people will abandon any site that veers too far from its core.
The challenge for every organization seeking to truly educate is to combine key content with fresh approaches, then to engage, to discover, to respect and to reflect.
June through August, when I was young, entailed family trips around the state. In September, when asked about my vacation, I would say brightly, "I visited Mexico, Paris and Lebanon," and then in a quieter voice, "without ever leaving Missouri." Although my family didn't go far, we were always learning. The show-me state attitude instilled at an early age, while riding in the back of a Buick Riviera, resurfaces each year around this time.
Because I took leave from my writing responsibilities this summer, it seems fitting I should return with a report on a few things I learned while away.
Faces Age More Than Connections
I didn't go back for my 25th high school reunion but I connected on Facebook with people I hadn't had face-time with in years. I renewed a friendship I've always regretted losing, I swapped updates with the fellow who gave me my first kiss (circa second grade), I caught up with a classmate who has since appeared in blockbuster films, and I watched my music teacher (now the Mayor of recently flood ravaged Clarksville) talk to reporters with style. Prior to this parallel reunion, most of my social network was comprised of family and people I know through the learning, technology, and social media fields. The relationships I've rekindled with childhood pals has drawn me to think about online community in more intimate terms, coaxing me to revise my profile and bring more of myself to this space.
Good Graphics Tell Compelling Stories
When my husband left his corporate career, he walked out with enough vendor-hawked t-shirts to last him decades. As the sole booth-visiting member of the family now, I focus my attention on squeezy chotchkies for boy wonder and the ease with which the booth itself can teach me something so I don't need to bond with the demodude. This summer's winning booth was from Vivisimo, an enterprise search and clustering utility that wouldn't have grabbed my attention had it not been for their stellar artwork and informative decor. This otherwise commoditized vendor did more than any t-shirt could. It drew me in, taught me a few things, and may even lead to sales.
Feel Indicates Workplace Performance
I helped Doug Newburg and Jim Clawson with their forthcoming book based on Doug's groundbreaking look at what makes the world's most successful people extraordinary. After interviewing 500+ world-class performers in fields including sports, business, medicine and music, Doug learned that how they feel is the most consistent indicator of how they perform. The better they became, the more they felt how they wanted to feel, which drove them to continue and excel. This rattles common HR practices identifying feel as a taboo topic best left in the parking lot. After asking myself, "How do I want to feel?" I began challenging leaders I work with to ask themselves (and their people) the same question, then consider actively working to remove obstacles making them feel like ___.
Generational Demographics Go 2.0 For the past year I've toyed with closing my generation-focused learning firm, missing the brain-bending challenges I recalled from my big-company days. Then, within a few weeks time, I received a flurry of calls from organizations asking how to get wider engagement and a bottom-line bounce from social media initiatives digital natives installed. I hadn't realized I was one of only a few people speaking out on how social means something different to millennials, gen-Xers, baby boomers and an older/wiser crowd. Usage stats become background when you consider the diversity in how and why people of different ages use Twitter, enterprise communities or even Skype.
Technology Occasionally Knows Better
In the olden days, when I crafted long emails to convey a point I didn't want to broach in person, a string of borderline pieces eaten by the Internet cloud caused me to reflect then reword. More recently, several 140-character soapboxes summonsed the fail-whale which spurred me to reconsider my venue. But when our local area lost electricity last night, twelve hundred miles away from hurricane Ike, just as Tina Fey was to channel Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live, rather than grouse in the dark I thanked technology for offering me welcome assistance and I sought out some much-needed sleep, appreciating whatever force was looking out for me after a long enlightening summer.
A CEO just asked me how to get his people under control. He believes he's doing everything right so it must be his people who are all wrong. He reminds me of the teacher who prepares all summer and then come fall the wrong students arrive.
Even those smart enough to rise to positions of influence sometimes think the forces of good are only available from order (control) and the forces of evil are epitomized by chaos (kaos). I'm no Agent 99, but when anyone tells me they will get through a possible recession or the school year by clamping down on employees, students, customers, markets, or even time, I feel an urge to shout into my shoe.
Some aspects of leadership and learning will always be uncertain and out of our reach. Chaos is not our enemy; it accounts for the immune system, nature, boiling water, honey, the stock market, motherhood, and innovation. Chaos is change at work.
Chaos theory doesn't avow the universe lacks order. It reminds us order is intricate and changeable, and that we ought to stop constantly trying to direct and predict.
Statesman and futurist Harlan Cleveland (1918–2008) -- one of the smartest people I have ever met -- offered some hints from his own experience on how to conceive, plan, organize, and lead organizations in ways that best liberate ingenuity and maximize choice:
No individual can be truly in general charge of anything interesting or important. That means everyone involved is partly in charge. How big a part each participant plays will depend on how responsible he or she feels for the general outcome of the collective effort, and what he or she is willing to do about it.
Broader is better. The more people affected by a decision feel they were consulted about it, the more likely it is that the decision will stick.
Looser is better. The fewer and narrower the rules everyone must follow, the more room there is for individual discretion and initiative, small-group insights and innovations, regional adaptations, functional variations. Flexibility and informality are good for workers' morale, constituency support, investor enthusiasm, and customer satisfaction.
Planning is not architecture; it's more like fluid drive. Real-life planning is improvisation on a general sense of direction, announced by a few perhaps, but only after genuine consultation with the many who will need to improvise on it.
Information is for sharing, not hoarding. Planning staffs, systems analysis units, and others whose full-time assignment is to think should not report only in secret to some boss. Their relevant knowledge must be shared, sooner rather than later, with all those who might be able to use it to advance the organization's purpose.
The most productive organizations flex enough for people to follow their heart while everyone does enough of what other people need them to do. If we demand people only do as they're told, critical work goes unnoticed. If people have the authority to think for themselves (and could anything be more chaotic than that?), there's a good chance they'll see more broadly about their job than anyone else could.
Humans are capital not in the sense that they exist, like a five-axis machine sitting on a factory floor, but in the sense they can transform information and energy into more useful forms.
If someone tries to sell you control by clamping down on chaos, make sure you don't get suckered into paying too dearly. For organizations to thrive, we need to figure out approaches, technologies, models, and systems which honor our whole-selves in the board room as much as in the lunch room and that generate enthusiasm, if not outright joy.
Many of my colleagues recently attended the Web2.0Expo in San Francisco. From over 2K miles away I followed those twittering the fine details, longing for a way to easily get to the West Coast. This expo captivated my attention because the world live web, by its very nature, invites each of us to learn.
Watching party2.0 unfold from afar reminded me of work on invitation leadership from William Purkey, Betty Siegel and John Novak who identify four ways people attend to life.
No Party People
Some people go through life telling anyone who listens, "There is no party." At work they say things like, "I know how this will play out. Why bother?" At home they nod in agreement to the awfulizing spewed on around-the-clock newsTV. They brighten a room when they leave it. Their words and actions intentionally disinvite others, implying people are irresponsible and incapable, while demeaning, diminishing, and devalueing the human spirit. In a live web world, they are static pages without even a contact_us link.
Parties Not For Me
A second group of people mope, "There is a party, but I can tell I'm not invited." While often hard on themselves, they are frequently harder on others: obsessed with policies and unaware of people's feelings, disorganized, boring, and busy. At work they spend more time on us than them. At home the neighborhood Jones' are eternally out of reach. In tech-terms, they're frenetic mailinglists you didn't sign on to receive.
Not Going to the Party
A third group announces, "There's a party, I'm invited, and I'm not going." They think, "I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not interesting enough to go the party." Although it may seem counterintuitive, I know several charismatic leaders (and parents) who can only unintentionally invite others. Underneath their confident demeanors, they're uncertain and afraid because when whatever accounts for their success fails them, they don't know how to proceed. If they were software they'd be promising fantastical upgrade flops.
Party Time
The fourth group of people know, "There's a party and I'm invited, and I'm going. I may not be good enough but I might, I may not be with-it enough but I might, I may not be smart enough, but I might." People who intentionally invite themselves and others risk going to life's party. They are the ones who show up time and again; persistent, imaginative, resourceful, and courageous even when the going get tough. They are firm, flexible, and friendly, deliberately choosing fairness over equality and mindfully working toward the big picture rather than swatting at this moment's gnats. At home they are raising adults, not children. At work they appreciate relationships and value divergent perspective. Think social networks at their best.
Leading and learning in this evolving world requires us to personally invite ourselves, personality invite others, professionally invite ourselves, and professionally invite others. We do that through optimism, respect, trust, care, and intentionality.
From this will emerge a fifth group: those who see, "There's a party I can't attend physically, yet people will participate with me as if I were these." Let the cognitive surplus party commence.
A woman, who as a girl in gradeschool taunted me enthusiastically, contacted me through a social network site asking if I planned to attend an upcoming reunion.
At first I didn't think much about it. I assumed she was on some committee for the gathering of once inelegant adolescents and she was contacting me as part of her new do-good campaign.
I replied in a perfunctory noncommittal way, and tucked her married name into my mental rolodex of people to avoid calls from if they appear on callerID.
She wrote again, reporting I looked healthy in my miniature photo and that I must be happy, how did I do it? Then she asked if we could connect directly on the site so we could correspond again.
When I mentioned to a colleague her reappearance in my life, he asked if I planned to tell her off. And what, explain I'm not keen to chitchat with someone who went out of her way to torment me for a decade and whose young face flashed before my eyes when Mean Girls debuted?
Clearly she’s unaware I harbor less-than-friendly memories of her, and in hindsight I can see her inhospitability was probably not aimed at me alone. But bam here she is.
This uncomfortable modern scenario raises an important question.
Should our social networks include only people we like, those we want to socialize with, and as my friend Jimm says, "Those we’d agree to take camping"? I don't believe they were designed to be personal discomfort-free zones. Do you?
Although nobody chooses to spend precious time with overtly unlikable people, part of the power from loose and tight ties, is the depth and breadth of our networks: who we know who knows others and so on. The people just beyond our close ties' collective intelligence represents our potential for connective intelligence.
If this former mean-girl (who has been nothing but sweet and cheerful in our recent communiqué) has a relationship with someone who can help me close an important deal or land a dream assignment, it should not matter she invited my friends to a slumber party in fifth grade while stridently leaving me out. However, what about announcing to everyone in the junior high cafeteria I'd sneezed peas out my nose (which I hadn't, it was mustard)?!
All social situations offer us the opportunity to be uncomfortable in unexpected ways. We shouldn't expect online social networks to be any different. It just seems easier to avoid the awkwardness when there's no auto-reminder in seven days you haven’t yet engaged.
A decade ago the hot app on everyone's desktop was PointCast, a personalized headline service of content emblazoned across your screensaver through a pre-RSS feed. No typing required, no link to click through. While on the phone or talking with a colleague at your desk you could glean the day's hot news or gather learning-bites you subscribed to receive. Downtime be damned.
Before overloading corporate servers and attention spans, it catalyzed an international conversation about new ways to deliver information and help people learn. A little push, a little pull.
Twit ahead to today, and hyper-connected status updates fill the tiny spaces in our days like expanding foam sealant.
Why not augment the question, "What Are You Doing?" with "What Are You Learning?" or even "What Can Others Learn From?"
Imagine the potential for discovery if the people who you follow through Twitter or any social-network status updates rounded out their contributions with something educational. Learning would zing wild and flow free.
Here's how you can help.
1. Add news-to-use. If you micromessage personal feelings ala "... is feeling lazy tonight," add something for the rest of us like, "Pizza at BestPitza on Sole Rd saved the night." Even 1000 miles away, I might tuck away the tip and think to myself, "Lazy and clever" rather than "Lazy and wasting my time."
2. Provoke us.Howard Rheingold recently wrote, "http://tinyurl.com/2ycryk Excessive texting may signal mental illness." I enjoyed seeing what Howard's reads, and the article itself reframed my thinking about IM.
3. Promote something special. Two films on my go-see list came from recommendations by people who I rarely talk with about movies. "Saw Making Trouble tonight. Good film, well done."
4. Inspire us. An amazing friend uses her lines for gems like, "...is choosing conviction over convenience." Reminds me to sit up a bit straighter and do the hard work.
5. Ask for advice. I recently saw this plea for assistance. "looking for a great job. mine's a dud. if you know something I should pursue, tell me quickly."
Let's just avoid calling it twLearning.
I challenge everyone who reads this to try edu-twittering for a week. Tell us here you're on board. We'll learn together what happens.
With the turning of the seasons, are there leaves in your work and life you are ready to let go?
When my husband was leaving a long-time job, the exit interviewer asked if a different role would make him stay. He had envisioned one, but he didn't mention it.
He imagined himself outfitted with a piece of deadwood. When he found someone who no longer added value to their teammates or another part of the company, he'd tap them on the shoulder, listen for an echo, then say the magic words, "It's time for you to go."
We've all visited a workplace (if not your own then a store, a courthouse, a school, the DMV) where the light in people's eyes have gone out although they haven't left the building. Garry Ridge, CEO of WD-40 Company, describes them as, "People who could be more magnificent elsewhere." They serve as a reminder that retention programs and sabbaticals have their place. So do sunset clauses, exit strategies and friends who care enough to say things we don't want to hear.
If we are committed to learning and growing, we must be equally committed to unlearning and stopping. Without actively letting go and moving along, where will we find room for something more?
Just as tree leaves fall to create space for something new, every organization has people who would do better elsewhere. Likewise, each of us has habits, processes, policies and beliefs worth changing with the season. Some changes require a radical departure from what's come before. Others may only need a few steps, but steps toward leaving things behind nonetheless.
While this might seem like common sense, our practices are anything but common. It's as if leaving a job or ending a venture necessitates talking in hushed tones. Heck, disconnecting from anything for long -- be it email, twitter, or social network de jure -- has somehow become taboo, a politically incorrect dénouement. Are we so stuck on the playground that we always equate quitting with failure? Those who stopped smoking or eating too much, or even flipping out over getting onboard an airplane would tell you that an end was their beginning.
What happened to trusting ourselves and the world? When we believe in ourselves, trusting the universe to handle the rest, we're ready to experience freedom. Think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as he steps off the cliff in the cave, faithfully believing a bridge will appear.
Todd Parker of Taproots shared with me this Zen aphorism: A well-read professor was on vacation in the Far East searching for knowledge. He visited a wizened monk the professor had heard knew the secrets of life. As the professor chronicled his journey and everything he had heard about the monk, the monk quietly smiled and boiled water for tea. The professor continued with his stories as the monk began to fill the man's cup. The professor signaled he had received enough tea but the monk kept pouring, and pouring. The professor cried, "My cup is overflowing. You see it's full. You can't add any more!" yet the monk kept pouring. The man, whose pants were now wet with spilled tea, stood up about to leave when the monk finally spoke. "Your cup was full, and there was room for no more. You must first empty your cup if you wish it to be filled."
Who amongst us hasn't sought one more piece of knowledge, snuck in one more call or stayed in a role past the point where we knew we should go? When do we make time to empty the cup? How do we expect to innovate, lead or even thrive when we're stuck.
Not taking action is usually an unconscious decision to go with the flow and hang on to what we have. Finishing something, or even ending prematurely because we know in our hearts it should be done with, requires a different skills, another view of our priorities and a conscious effort to be someplace else.
This month I'll close down a project I've been advisor to for years. I'm both uneasy and energized by the prospect of bidding it farewell, reminding myself daily we can no longer afford the emotional and financial drain, simultaneously knowing I'll miss the people and the work very much. What prevents me from abandoning wrap up is a realization we made a difference, we learned, and once on the other side, we'll make way for something new in newfound time.
While I don't suggest full-scale dropping out for the sheer thrill of fewer things to do... (although let's all take a moment to fantasize about what that might feel like. Ahhh.)
...perhaps we should adopt one more practice. If we're not ready to change up a few big things, let's get rid of at least one less-than-stellar something a month.
Less is more and all that.
Years after my husband imagined his perfect job, our friends Anne Derryberry and Ellen Wagner put the idea to use in their own way. After time served in the roll-up firm that had acquired their company, they found themselves sticks and tapped one another on the shoulder. Then they called us and told us it was finally their time to go. They've never looked back.
Tell us what you will leave behind this year.
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Marcia Conner > www.marciaconner.com > @marciacmarcia focuses on enterprise social messaging and learning culture design. She's a 20-year veteran of the enterprise technology market, currently Senior Enterprise Strategist for Pistachio Consulting.
