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Social Media Policy: 113 Policies Indexed and Counting

Chris Boudreaux's Social Media Policy Database was white hot today under #socialmedia. This is an invaluable resource, which you can view social media policies by industry, get email updates when new features or policies are added and even add your own.

From About.com to Yahoo!, today there are officially 113 social media policies listed. This resource is exceptional and particularly essential for any organization (and their employees, members, partners, etc.) currently exploring, discovering and participating on the Social Web. Having a social media policy is essential to establish a framework for acceptable participation - both personal and professional. Bourdeaux's mission seems to express it best, social media governance - "empowerment with accountability." - Well said!

Source: Social Media Governance
Author & Contributing Credits: @cboudreaux, @EdBennett, Jason Rup
Referring hastags: #smg, #socialmedia

Lessons Learned from Project Managers - "Focus on the User"

BNET talks to project heads from GM, Nokia, Mehtod and Facebook to find out what they consider "lessons learned" from working on high-stakes projects.

What I loved about each response was that the "user" was an influential factor in each take-away.

The perfect enemy is the enemy of the deadline.
"When you’re late, nothing happens ...and you’re not learning anything [from your customers]."
— Bill Wallace, engineering group manager for GM’s Volt battery

Always know whose problem you’re solving.
"Never forget who your customer is. Make that person real — it’s the key to getting the best product and keeping the team motivated... Bring in actual users so they can tell you early on, “I don’t know what this button does.”
— Lisa Waits, Nokia’s director of corporate business development

Make sure you’re talking to the right people.
"The right people weren’t talking together enough [to look at a customer / product challenge holistically]. People often get into silos in their heads..."
— Josh Handy, head of industrial design at Method

Ask yourself, “Is this necessary?”
"We have ideas on how we can help users communicate better, but we’re not always sure how well they will work. We do tons of testing for every little change to the page. One thing I know now, which I wish I had learned earlier in my career, is how to prevent “feature creep.” You have to be able to recognize when you’re inventing a feature that duplicates another or only adds unnecessary complexity."
— Peter Deng, product manager at Facebook

View full article: Lessons from the Worlds Best Project Managers >>

Creativity is not a luxury, but a necessity

The exploration of new ideas, the expression of different ways to present those ideas, and most of all the unique nature of communicating complex ideas simply or provocatively -- all require time and an open opportunity to explore, test, and try again. Creativity is not a luxury, but a necessity.

Reading through my feeds, I came across this great "tongue-in-cheek" article by Paul Sloane, author and speaker on leadership, innovation and lateral thinking, entitled - Ten Great Ways to Crush Creativity. 

Sloane says, "Leaders have more power than they realize. They can patiently create a climate of creativity or they can crush it in a series of subtle comments and gestures. Their actions send powerful signals. Their responses to suggestions and ideas are deciphered by staff as encouragement or rejection."

Here's how Sloane sees a top 10 list to "crush creativity" in an organization:

1. Criticize new ideas
2. Discourage brainstorming or collaboration to explore new ideas or creative solutions
3. Hoard problems - don't seek ideas to create innovative solutions
4. Focus on efficiencies not innovation
5. Overwork - "hard work alone will solve the problem"
6. Adhere to the plan at all costs
7. Punish for mistakes, reduce taking any risk
8. Don't look outside (the organization, the processes used, the existing solution in place)
9. Promote only those who think and manage like you
10. Don't waste money on training - just learn as you go

For the full article, read on >>

See Paul Sloane's latest book, The Innovative Leader: How to Inspire Your Team and Drive Creativity.

Consider Competitive Intelligence

By Heather D

There is a new book out now by Leonard M. Fuld titled, The Secret Language of Competitive Intelligence. Reading a review of the book, I thought there was an interesting adaptation for applying competitive intelligence for yourself as part of a team, workgroup, or other collective network.

The premise of the book is “How to See Through & Stay Ahead of Business Disruptions, Distortions, Rumors, and Smokescreens.”  While targeted for business-to-business, the idea strikes me that even at a micro level, this book has a lot of relevance for how people could leverage this competitive advantage for themselves.

Ultimately, the book is about examining behaviors, patterns, actions, and lack of action to determine what strategies are in place around you and what strategies you should take to be successful.

In this light, I thought to start the week, I would offer some basic ideas to keep ahead and consider “competitive intelligence.”

Collect. Incorporate. Act.

Collect.

• Gather information.
• Always be on the look out for new tips and techniques.
• Be open to many new ideas at once.
• Analyze “old” problems with new solutions.
• Make sure you have a clear mindset and approach for what you do in your role everday.
• Don’t become paralyzed by the amount of learning you need to do. Welcome it as part of your personal and team’s growth and success.
• Keep your vision clear – for yourself and for your team.
• Analyze the ever-changing landscape.
• Identify resistance. (Are you or others around you resisting? What barriers to success are there to break through?)
• Understand what it means to be a stakeholder.
• Appreciate what everyone else has at stake.

Incorporate.

• Become an expert.
• Develop a skill set necessary and valuable.
• Share your expertise and lead!
• Apply what you learn regularly.
• Spend your time wisely on what you do best.
• Strive for being efficient at your strengths.
• Remember you are part of a team, a workgroup, a network.
• Realize how others rely upon you.
• Identify how you can contribute and achieve greater success (for yourself and others).
• Use a system that makes you and others more efficient.
• Strive for “repeatable success.”

Act.

• Work towards the big picture.
• Strike quickly. Don’t delay. Act.
• Don’t make things harder than they are.
• Evaluate priorities.
• Do things well.
• Create iteratively.
• Synchronize with your team, stakeholders, network regularly.
• Communicate clearly and often.
• Operate honestly (Be honest to yourself, your peers, your stakeholders, your management, your customers…)
• Take a step back and look at your progress and your goals.
• Look ahead, but always stop to acknowledge your successes.
• Look at every challenge and solution with a 360 degree view.
• Keep focused on the purpose, mission, wants/needs/desires, requirements, requests, agendas.
• Be willing to fail! (Yep, I said it! – See Business Week, July 10, 2006, Eureka! We Failed!)
• Make adjustments.
• Respond to feedback as a positive driver.
• Be flexible.
• Strive to be the best for yourself and for your collective team.

It's Really This Simple

By Heather D

Managing hundreds of Web Projects over the course of ten years on both the agency and client-side, I was tickled to see this fantastic representation of the Website Development Process. PingMag makes what can feel so complicated and muddy, so clear and simple. So far, in my quest to write, depict, present the true "grail" for the Web Project Life Cycle, this entry is my number one favorite Web Process blog entry ever!

Great job, PingMag!

Business Innovation Wanted

By Heather D

Tom Peters had an interesting entry today on a New York Times article titled, “Here's an Idea: Let Everyone Have Ideas.” In light of my post this morning on Generation C, I think it is interesting to note how the influence of consumer-generated content and technology are symbiotically permeating business culture and leadership as well.

The article highlights various companies who empower their employees to propose new benefits and resources that can create improvements and greater efficiencies for the company.  The idea: enable management to "tap into the collective genius of the whole organization."

In the case of Rite Solutions, an “employee-centric” software company that, oh yeah, “builds advanced — and highly classified — command-and-control systems for the Navy” actively gets their employees engaged  in creating “proposals” for improvement. Fostering and encouraging ideas with an underlying zeal for success, employees create proposals which in turn "become stocks, complete with ticker symbols, discussion lists and e-mail alerts. Employees buy or sell the stocks, and prices change to reflect the sentiments of the company's engineers, computer scientists and project managers — as well as its marketers, accountants and even the receptionist"

Rite Solutions recognizes that some of "the most brilliant insights tend to come from people other than senior management...creating a marketplace to harvest collective genius."

Included in this article are other innovative companies even looking beyond their internal resources to cast a wider net of innovation.

This article is really fascinating and exciting to think of the major organizational shifts that will happen when good leadership centers around its team, fosters creativity, innovation and collective thinking. This type of culture promotes the best ideas to surface over the genius of just a few.

• Tom Peters post is appropriately titled Innovation U.
• See CEO Jim Lavoie’s Business Innovation Factor for more information on Rite Solutions.