Sorry.  One can’t pretend to know social media, Enterprise 2.0, or anything like unto it and then in the real world (being outside of that realm) be closed off, controlling and opaque.  It just doesn’t work that way.  Especially when you are trying to create these type of environments with this type of mindset.

Trust and transparency are personal and organizational cultural traits.  If you don’t live them, you won’t understand them.  If you don’t understand them, you can’t effectively say you know all about “social.”

Trying to control social is insane because social = people. People resist control, even if it is toward a good cause.  People value honest and open communication.

Instead, influence, & inspire.  Yes, even when it comes to the technical aspects of E2.0.

Photo credit: db*photography

One of the objections to social media / networking / learning is, “But we will lose control of the content!  They will be able to say anything they want to and that has so many implications.  What about personal information?  Or intellectual information going public?  What will legal say?  What if they say something that is not right?”

Answer #1 is: How do you deal with it now when that happens? It is very much the same.

Answer #2 is: Take control by losing it.

It is true, by giving the people the power to create content within an organization and the venue to widely distribute it, you are losing control over the content to a degree.  So our focus needs to change from controling the content to controlling the outcome.  This is a different mindset.

We have heard so many stories of companies like Dell and Comcast who lost control of the content yet took control of the outcome.  If you are not familiar with these stories, go read them – it is worth it to understand.  A quote from this post:

Customers leave unsolicited positive comments about the products and services they love every day on blogs, review sites and discussion forums. And for the most part, companies are just as silent.

But not Dell. The company launched its Direct2Dell blog in July 2006 to engage directly and publicly with customers about problems. Though the blog had a rocky start, Dell succeeded in showing even its most severe critics that it was both paying attention and acting on customer feedback.

Losing control in one area gives us power in another.

Objection #3 is one that I don’t hear very often directly. It is usually indirectly, because no one wants to admit it. But they do say it through the questions they ask. “If we let everyone learn from each other, we give up control of that information.”

Answer: Yea & Nay. Let’s start with the Nay.

NAY: There are many ways to keep control of the information. You can watch it via RSS or email alerts. All the information is open to you and isn’t hidden. So if anything goes WAY out of line (which RARELY happens) you now see it and can correct it.

Plus there are almost always additional security measures. For example, in our area for HR information, only the HR director can post wikis or change them. There is another area where we let the employees post their HR information (for example a health and wellness and financial information) which is open. But if we opened up the official employee handbook (and yes, the official document is a wiki and not a MS Word Doc or PDF), any one could add vacation days (not that that would be all bad ).

You can usually set up a moderating function on forums, wikis, comments, etc.

But the security measures must be use judiciously (see ‘The Fence’ below).

YEA: That is right. For the most part, anyone can post anything. Be it right or wrong (which is tomorrow’s objection/post). And, as counterintuitive as this may seem at first, it is not all bad.

Number one, the training department didn’t need to ‘write’ it. Instead the employees taught each other. How great is that? Ya, it is not as pretty as a powerpoint presentation you may have given, nor quite as polished, but it was good information everyone needs to know and now anyone can find it!

Giving up control in this respect is a good thing. It is what you want to do. Feel the release. Breathe in – Breathe out…

The Fence: By implementing a social learning solution you sit on the control fence. Control to much and it won’t be used. But not controlling it at all is unwise. There needs to be a balance – enough structure and processes to give guidance yet enough freedom to allow the users to do what they want.

What do you think?