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How many hours of social media training are enough for social employees?

There is no right answer to this question. The number of hours of social media training required depends entirely on the individual, for two reasons:

Each person comes into social media training with a different level of understanding, skill and practical application of social capabilities.
Each person is unique in the way they learn, some requiring more time than others.

So saying any given number of hours is sufficient is the really the wrong question. The notion of setting the clock and saying everyone should be able to get this in a set amount of time is pretty dangerous concept. Let’s play this out a little further …

Early adopters of social who’ve built a significant presence and social currency on their own prior to the training, may need very little training. While those starting from scratch and/or have many doubts about the value of social to begin with (these are the ones who come kicking and screaming into the training), may need much more, that is … if you convince them to being trained in the first place.

When building a training curriculum start by teaching:

The value of building trust and credibility online and how it can be used to engage with colleagues, partners and customers to establish or nurture relationships.
Help your employees understand the shift in the way people seek and consume information. And, how the most sought after sources are actually credible and trustworthy experts in their field. The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer is a great study showing this trend.
Explain the way humans communicate has changed dramatically as a result of social capabilities, our world becoming increasingly more social every minute and earned media sources remain most credible, the Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising Survey provide more details.
Help them to understand how their personal engagement can benefit them professionally, as well as benefiting the company or the customers they serve.
Be clear about the level of effort and commitment required to develop an effective online presence.

One size fits all training in a set amount of time with certification is a recipe for disaster. As cited by Gallup Leadership research:

When leadership fails to focus on individuals’ strengths, the odds of an employee being engaged are a dismal 1 in 11, or 9%. But, when . . . leadership focuses on the strengths of its employees, the odds soar to almost 3 in 4, or 73%. When leaders focus on and invest in their employees’ strengths, the odds of each person being engaged goes up eightfold.

I recommend a training program include an assessment of the employee from which they can plot the course that’s right for them. Consider approaching the assessment and personalized planning through the following steps:

Inventory each participant’s social presence to understand the social venues they use and how they use them.
Understand each person’s motivation for getting involved and remaining engaged in social media.
Assess the employee’s preferred online behaviors to determine the employee’s comfort level with various methods of engaging online. For example, do they only read what other people publish? Do they comment on other people’s content? Or do they create content on their own?
Determine the most effective ways to mobilize each employee according to their strengths and preferences. Also determine how you will empower them to utilize their skills, preferences, and strengths.

A social employee training curriculum needs to begin with an overview of the benefits of participating, clearly defining the expectations, time commitment, training support provided and the milestones, goals or desired outcomes your expecting them to drive. For example, our program focuses on 3 key themes Go Social. Stay Safe. Be Smart.

Go Social: Collaborating via social computing to pioneer intellectual capital and drive innovation that matters for clients and the world
Stay Safe: Practicing secure computing – building trust by taking personal responsibility to secure IBM, our clients and colleagues
Be Smart: Building and sharing insight and expertise, and exercising good judgment

We’ve created over 60 courses available on the Digital IBMer Hub, IBM’s employee training portal, to educate our 430,00+ employees on Social Business best practices. Nearly 200,000 courses have been completed.

This is a tremendous opportunity for the employees, but they may not see it right away. If they don’t see the value for them personally and what they’ll get out of it any amount of time is a waste.

This post was inspired when I served on a panel today at the Social Media Today “Social Shake Up” event with Richard Margetic, Director, Global Social Media, Dell and Sandy Gibson, CEO, Elevate, our panel moderator was, Greg Shove, Founder and CEO SocialChorus. The panel was called “Throwing Open the Floodgates: Empowering Employees” – here’s a brief descriptor: The rise of social media means that employees can become engaged with their customers within their individual capacities. But of course that’s easier said than done. Well ask four important questions: What are the floodgates, what does through them open mean, what are the risks and rewards of dong so and finally, how do you best throw them open?

Our panel moderator, Greg Shove, asked us an interesting question …

“How many hours of social media training are enough for your employees before your brand considers ready to participate in social media?”

Richard, responded explaining the Dell Social Media and Communities University (SMaC U) program requires 8 hours of training before any employee can receive their certification and use the @Dell identifier an officially represent the brand.

Social Workforce Enablement System Components

What support do your employees and partners need to effectively engage in social to represent your brand?

I’m a passionate believer that sharing knowledge & expertise is a key driver of effective social engagement and it is imperative when establishing personal & brand reputation. Our CEO Ginni Rometty, recently said it like this: “In a social enterprise, your value is established not by how much knowledge you amass, but by how much knowledge you impart on others.”

Over the past few months, I’ve been exploring how IBM’s Expertise Enablement System compares to other leading brands that are vested in supporting a social workforce. This exploration led me to define a set of common components any company will require to drive successful engagement through social. I thought I would share these components here to inspire others who are working on developing such a system for their workforce. If you have additional ideas please share them with me!

Must have common componentry of an effective social business employee enablement program, include:

Organizational Alignment and Cultural Support from Senior Leadership: Executive commitment and open leadership is key to employee adoption. It is the leadership that sets the cultural tone for the organization. If the leaders embrace social and demonstrate that they practice it, not just talk about it, employees will adopt the company’s social business agenda and follow it’s organizing principles.
Training: Publicly-facing employees require training to ensure a consistent level of interaction quality.
Listening & Analytics: Social listening can enable activation, allowing employees to be responsive and even predictive with their actions. Deeper analytics provides employees and the company with an understanding of social engagement as compared to competitors and brand goals.
Content: Employees who create quality user-generated content stimulate interaction and discussion within their networks. Those who maintain a sustained commitment to such engagements are more likely to be recognized as an authority & become influential around their area of expertise.
Measurement & Reporting: Employee enablement KPI’s must be tied to business goals. Provided on regular basis, these analytics help employees understand their network engagement effectiveness and allow them to make informed decisions that improve future performance.
Platform: Curation and selection of appropriate social networks & venues ensures employees are engaged where their constituencies are likely to be participating & seeking expertise.
Governance: Ensures that each component of the Enablement system is on-point and in compliance with company standards & security requirements

What are the common components of social empowerment systems at your company? Please share them with me, so I can learn from you!

Show me. Guide me. Let me.

An approach to building a training curriculum to improve employee engagement through social media.

Over the course of the last year, I’ve worked with our internal communications & training specialists to lead the develop of an education curriculum to advance employee skills in the area of external social media engagement to benefit our customers and our brand. In this post and several to follow, I’ll share our approach in hopes of helping other brand marketers contemplating building such an education curriculum.

Getting Started

Before you begin creating any materials, it’s important to conduct listening research to understand which venues your customers are most engaged on. Knowing this will help you prioritize the training modules that need to be developed. For example, since IBM’s a large B2B in the tech space, we have specific focus on professional social networks, User Groups, Tech Forums & Communities and Tech related blogs so we’ve prioritized training on these venues. You’ll want to support your employees to advance skills on appropriate venues where your customers & prospects are more likely to connect & develop relationships. Stay away from developing training about the latest tools, there will be several hundred new ones introduced in the next few months and you won’t be able to keep up with them or the enhancements made post release.

Outline clear learning objectives

Once you’ve prioritized the venues important for employees to engage in, you’ll want to map out a curriculum that can accommodate various skill levels from beginner to advanced and begin segmenting the skills each module will deliver. For example:

Blogging 101: The Basics

Learning objectives:

Identify the basic features of Blogging and its terminology
Select a hosting platform for your blog
List techniques to create compelling blog content
Describe the guidelines and policies for Blogging specific to your brand

Blogging 201: Intermediate – How to Plan, Maintain and Optimize your blog

Learning objectives:

Identify the need to schedule blogging on your calendar
Demonstrate how to create compelling content
List techniques to optimize your blog for search engines to grow your audience

Blogging 301: Advanced – Differentiating and Promoting your Blog

Learning objectives:

Identify how to differentiate your blog and promote your expertise
Grow your blog followers and connections
List tools to help you measure your influence

Training Approach: Show me. Guide me. Let me.

We use a progression of simulations under the framework of Show me. Guide me. Let me. This approach gradually helps learners develop the skills they need to engage in social media on behalf of IBM. More specifically:

1. Show Me (Demonstration): Video simulations demonstrate the steps of procedures to learners, while also showing text that describes the process. Audio is often also provided to explain the steps to learners.

2. Guide Me (Guided Practice): Learners participate in the simulation by clicking the tools they would use in real life, but the tools are simulated. Throughout the simulation, text or audio guides learners through the process within a safe environment where learners can make mistakes without interfering with actual customer information in a live system.

3. Let Me (Assessment): Learners click through a series of steps within lab exercise to achieve desired results, but no guidance is provided during the exercise. Learners rely on their knowledge attained in steps 1 and 2 to complete the simulation. This is the most effective way to know whether learners understand the process.

Training delivery methods

It’s not always feasible to host on-site training. This was the case for us because we’re a global brand, so we use web based collaboration tools like IBM Connections and Smart Cloud to deliver the training. Hosting a series of community based lunch & learns in which the presentation was shared by the trainer during the first 30 minutes and then was opened up for questions and discussion the last 30 minutes. Throughout, participants and moderators are actively using text chat to provide input and ask questions or provide answers. We also recorded each session and made the modules available on our internal intranet portal called the Digital IBMer Hub. Employees to access the modules on demand at a time that is convenient and replay as many times as they like.

Given the quickly evolving nature of social and digital media, you will need the ability to quickly create and distribute training or education to your people—especially as new channels, best practices, or policies emerge or fade. This approach could easily be used to train employees who are active in social media and also to keep them continually equipped with the latest information about your brand.

Effective Social Business Management

Social is not just another way to push content, it gives you the ability to connect human beings with one another and ignite conversations around topics of interest relevant to your social business initiative.

At IBM, the Social Business Manager collaborates closely with the Marketing Segment Manager to provide oversight for all aspects of a social business program including social listening research, planning, engagement and measurement.

Four requirements of an effective Social Business Manager include:

Information Gathering
Evaluating the data
Social Strategy & Content Plan
Measurement

“On a day-to-day basis, I mostly use HootSuite to monitor a few different social streams and what’s being said. I can retweet the content, or send it to one of our SMEs to share. I also like Sysmos. I use it on a weekly basis to track some of our numbers.” Kate Motzer, IBM Social Business Manager

Information gathering

Utilize social intelligence to understand the marketplace. There are a variety of ways to gather social intelligence. For the most reliable results, you’ll want to combine in-depth research with real-time listening. As a complex Social Media eco-system continues to emerge, any social media lead will rely on various tools to manage their social media programs.

“I’m using social dashboards to get information, or certain keywords or hashtags for conversations that are going around, and trying to be involved in that conversation, it also helps us identify communities and specific people who are influencers…” Cleveland Bonner, IBM Social Business Manager

Evaluating the data

Understand your audience; what is important to them and who is important to their conversation. Building your constituency — a group of people who would identify themselves as a group based on shared interests, beliefs, or behaviors — is a critical part of the success of any social business program. The more specific you are about your constituency, the easier it will be to create a digital plan that they will value and engage in.

“Are we driving conversations outside of the echo-chamber? Also, are people engaging with your blogs? Are they responding to your Tweets? Are they having conversations on Facebook or SlideShare?” Colleen Burns, IBM Social Business Manager

Social Strategy & Content Plan

Create a Social Strategy & Content Plan informed by your evaluation. Make connections between thought leaders. Determine who should be involved in this conversation, who can help the marketplace understand your company’s position and who can help your company leaders better understand the marketplace. Decide on the content type and content format that you should share and distribute in your social strategy.

Measuring Success (Metrics):

Monitoring and improving upon Reach, Engagement, Amplification & Conversion.

“I think what’s important is having a very clear and well-defined strategy and objectives, figuring out which groups you’re going to enable and how you’re going to enable them, and then making sure to provide them one spot that has all of the information they need in a manner that’s not overwhelming.” Kate Motzer, IBM Social Business Manager

An effective Social Business Manager understands and cares about the needs of their client and the community that their client serves. They learn the business culture as well as the political, economic and social context that influences their client’s industry. The Social Business Manager uses this intelligence to help the client achieve their business goals by identifying, connecting and communicating with influential decision makers. The goal is to create value for the client.

Do you have a dedicated team to drive effective social business management? Are you wondering what roles are required? Check out my book, The Most Powerful Brand on Earth, which includes a full chapter dedicated to the roles required to build a successful social team.

Trusted Experts engaged in social media are 135% more effective at generating leads

The Practice of Effective Social Business Program Management
Social gives you the ability to connect human beings with one another and ignite conversations around shared topics of interest relevant to your brands priorities. So if you’re thinking about social as just another channel to push content through, think again.

As you build your social program, identify insights and key learning’s from your listening research. Evaluate the ecosystem of people and connections. Think through how you can create a presence that will appeal to those you want to build relationships with and who would be best suited to be the focal point. Most likely, it’s not a marketer. Rather, focus on encouraging dialogue with your employees who have expertise to share. These leaders will not only have valuable knowledge, they also hold the promise to become the most trusted and credible within a relationship.

Like any other tactic or channel, social should not be approached independently but with an eye towards fulfilling your larger objectives. As you begin to think about your social plan ask yourself what role it will play in achieving your overall goals? Defining and identifying realistic ways to measure success are critical steps in creating the framework for a successful program.

Another crucial element in the early stages of developing a social program is performing listening research – this is how you get to know your audience and come to understand where they like to spend their time online and what kinds of content and tactical approaches they are most likely to respond to.

A change Agent – The emerging role of the Social Business Manager
Social business management is undertaken by people who create and engage in social digital experiences on behalf of your brand. At IBM, there’s a new role emerging, the Social Business Manager. This individual not only collaborates closely with the extended marketing management team to provide oversight for all aspects of a social business program including social listening research, planning, engagement and measurement. They also act as a change agent.

They’re driving cultural change and adoption of social through their commitment to:

Work with employees as a relationship manager and coach
Provide direction to employees on relevant influencers, external brand champions, partners and competitors within specific topic area. Help employees establish priorities which relationships to focus on.
Provide supporting assets, program guidance, training and critical feedback to those employees engaged in social outreach

Through some early pilot work I’ve been leading, we’re able to quantify that engagement with influential experts in social media is 135%* more effective at generating sales leads than traditional digital marketing tactics. Another way of saying this is, trusted SMEs who share their expertise online are 7x more likely to drive initiations with a call to action (offer) when compared to other digital marketing tactics in the same period.

This is a win-win for the brand and employees. The employees benefit from building their professional reputation and increasing their visibility in their field, while they drive the brand’s influence and support lead development in the market.

If you’re approach social as just another channel for marketers to manage and push content through, think again.

*IBM Select Social Eminence pilot 3Q2012

Building the IBM Brand in the Social Sphere

I’ve traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark to speak at the IBM Smarter Business Event.

This is my first time here and it’s an amazing vibrant city, full of old world charm and tourists from around the globe. I was lucky enough to have some time when I first arrived to tour a bit and take some snapshots to share with my family, friends and co-workers back in the US.

I’m excited to present work I’m leading, more specifically the IBM Select Social Eminence Program. This initiative empowers employees who are world-renowned for their expertise, experience, and reputation to more effectively share their knowledge across the social web. This is one of many social enterprise programs in IBM’s digital & social marketing strategy.

Skab verdens stærkeste brand, Susan Emerick, IBM US from IBM Danmark

Also presenting is my esteemed colleague Christian Carlsson @chris_carlsson, IBM Digital Leader of Denmark. He’ll be sharing Social Business Recipes from IBM’s Social Business transformation.

Favoritopskriften på Social Business, Christian Carlsson, IBM from IBM Danmark

While Christian and I have met virtually many times via collaborative communities and have shared ideas over the phone while web conferencing, there’s nothing like meeting in person face to face.

I’m also looking forward to is talking with our IBM Customers who are keen to understand what IBM’s doing to become a social business. It’s a journey, one that I’m passionate about and have been involved with shaping for a number of years.

After that, I’ll lead a discussion with MBA students about the importance of building & sustaining your personal brand online. Share tips on getting started, how to make connections with those who share your interest and provide some recommendations on what not to do.

For those attending the event, I look forward to meeting you! For those following the event, I’ll share my perspectives via Twitter #sbdk #socbiz @sfemerick

Performance Guru Advocates the Human Side of Social Business

Martin Packer describes himself as an “IBMer, Mainframe Performance Guy and zChampion, who gets to think about lots of other stuff.” And if you’d follow him on Twitter, friend him on Facebook or read his blog, you’d soon realize that characterization fits him to a T.

Martin’s involvement with social media began 25 years ago, when he first joined IBM and was introduced to its VM forums. Used by the technical community to talk internally about VM operating system issues, Martin quickly discovered two things. “Firstly, I could get discussions going on technical topics and, secondly and perhaps more importantly from a social perspective, I could find like-minded people in the company,” he says.

The forums provided Martin with a vehicle to grow professionally and gain stature as a mainframe performance specialist. They also gave him the impetus to establish his own voice within his community. “In 2005, I became aware of IBM’s internal blogging site called Blog Central. I guess I was a late adopter of blogging as a technique, but I took to this one quite readily and that really was where I got started with blogging and then with micro-blogging through Twitter and a lot of other social applications,” he says.

Today, Martin’s principal social applications are: IBM developerWorks, his Mainframe Performance Topics blog that’s open to IBM and non-IBM developers alike; he’s on Twitter @martinpacker, where he has close to 1,300 followers; LinkedIn where he continues to grow his professional network with those who share common a interest in mainframe performance topics and Facebook, where approximately 50 percent of his 300-plus friends are customers, IBM developers, consultants and other people in the field.

How does Martin make use of these different applications?

“Well, it’s horses for courses,” he explains. “I got heavily into Twitter because a lot of what I had to say was very brief. I didn’t want, for example, in a blog post to develop an argument over several column inches just to deliver a one-sentence payload. So, for me, Twitter works very well. It’s not as rich a medium as Facebook, so where the richness of medium is required, I think Facebook is better.

“But I’ve returned to blogging this year because I’ve realized there are some things I want to explain and discuss in much more detail and blogging is the right medium. … I think it’s a case of you use the tool depending on what you’re trying to do.”

On mixing personal and professional

Martin is not averse to mixing in non-technical discussions and comments. In fact, he sees it as a way of bringing his community closer together. “We get to find common ground,” he says. “For example, it might be taste in music or movies or books we’ve read, or maybe personal philosophy. So I have found that it’s really helped in getting to know customers and other IBMers and consultants in the industry much better and, hopefully, the same has worked the other way around.

“Other people have been able to get to know me better, to build common cause with me better, and that’s the way it seems to work.”

This eclectic approach of just being yourself is what Martin calls ‘authentic voice’ — “talk about stuff you want to talk about in ways you want to talk about it, using the media you want to talk about it in.” And it appears to have served him well in advancing his credibility and social eminence.

For example, when he speaks at conferences or visits with customers, “I’m seeing more and more people say to me I actually read your blog article on this very subject the other day,” he says.

Advice for beginners
Martin recommends that people find the medium that works best for them — “it’s probably several media” — and determine where the community they feel most at home with resides. Once people get started, he says, they’ll figure out how much time they want to devote. “I don’t really schedule time for social networking,” Martin says. “In fact, I regard it as interstitial. It’s stuff I do on and off throughout the day and maybe the night, as and when the mood takes me.”

Techie Uses IBM developerWorks to Build Social Eminence

Nigel Griffiths eats, drinks and sleeps Power Systems. Around 15 years ago, this IBM performance guru located in the United Kingdom authored a free utility he called nmon (short for Nigel’s Monitor), which can be used to monitor and analyze performance data on AIX and Linux systems.

While never officially supported by IBM, the tool captured the attention of performance specialists throughout the world to the point where today, Griffiths estimates, it has between 20,000 – 30,000 users. As nmon’s popularity grew, Griffiths was faced with a problem: how best to support this burgeoning community. “And so to communicate with them better, rather than e‑mailing them all,” he explains, “I started to get involved in developerWorks …” Thus marked the beginning of Griffiths’ journey into using developerWorks and its extensive social media capabilities.

A growing awareness of users’ needs

Griffiths first step was to create a wiki which he used to provide documentation and downloadable binaries for nmon. From there, he started a forum to answer questions from users directly and get answers to them fast. But he soon discovered that he was also fielding questions about Power Systems performance in general, and he noticed that many users were confused about how the machines work and how to get the best out of them, “Everyone wants their machine to go faster”.

And so Griffiths began blogging on developerWorks to allow others to benefit from his AIX and Linux expertise. He even made a few embedded videos. “I have the luxury that I work in advanced technical support, so I work on new things that are happening, new machines that we are bringing out with the latest technologies,” he says. His rule of thumb in deciding what to blog about: when he comes across content of interest to him, chances are that lots of others will be interested too.

The reader reaction and comments he’s generated from his blog entries have helped Griffiths escape what he calls “expert blindness”. He points to IBM clients just starting out and how they often struggle with things that he thinks are blatantly obvious. “That makes me rethink the way that we’re putting these things over and it reminds me that … there’s always some new guys that need a bit of help,” he says.

Griffiths has also found that customer tech people value interacting with IBM tech people and are impressed when contact is made, which helps increase brand awareness and purchase consideration among IT decision makers.

Griffiths is now using Twitter @mr_nmon to get the word out about his blog postings and to follow other leading performance experts. Currently, he follows 12 other techies inside and outside IBM whose knowledge he respects. “I usually find maybe one or two things a day that I think, oh, that’s useful, that would take me ages to work out. Or, I’ll file that one away, that could be useful in a project in the future,” he says. He also likes to re-tweet those items to the 400 or so people that are on his Twitter list, so they’re aware of the good stuff that others are doing.

Finding your own way

Griffiths’ advice to others considering social media: “Find out what approach to social media works for you.” For him, it’s about spending a few hours each week sharing expertise so people don’t have to find things out the hard way.

While leery about becoming too well known, Griffiths acknowledges that his reputation as a performance guru has grown considerably since he started blogging and tweeting. And his moderated use of social media shows that you don’t have to jump in with both feet to be really effective and make a contribution.

A quick look at developerWorks

Since 1999, IBM developerWorks has been the IT industry’s most comprehensive source of technical content for the developer community, focusing on IBM software products, as well as open-standards technologies such as Java, Linux, XML, Web development, and more. Four million IBM and non-IBM developers, IT professionals, and students in 195 countries use developerWorks each month to learn about advances in IT and open standards, develop and showcase their experience and skills, solve problems, and work collaboratively with experts and peers.

Today, the platform provides an extensive and well-managed set of social capabilities specially designed for business, which include wikis, blogs, forums, bookmarks, groups and profiles. Recently, developerWorks received the Forrester Groundswell Award and the AMI SMB Social Media Award in recognition of its effective use of social media.

Master Inventor Extols “the Unedited Voice of the Individual”

This past May, Tony Pearson had a problem. He was visiting with a group of customers in Australia — nearly 8,000 miles away from his home base at the IBM System Storage Executive Briefing Center in Arizona — and needed to know if the IBM XIV Storage System would work in a particular competitive environment. And so the master inventor and senior managing consultant posted his question on Twitter and waited.

Within 30 minutes, he received return tweets from the two non-IBM hardware manufacturers involved letting him know that they both support the proposed configuration.

“I got my answer without even knowing who to call or who works in those companies,” says Tony. “I just put it out there saying: I have this question. Does anybody have an answer?”

Tony’s story is just one more example of how he’s been able to use social media to benefit IBM and build his personal brand as a system storage expert and go-to guy.

How it all began

Back in 2006, Tony was asked to create a set of podcasts to explain and promote IBM’s renaming of its disk and tape products under the IBM System Storage product line. Thinking his voice was unsuitable for a podcast, he decided instead to blog about the changes. A year later, when he was transferred to IBM’s Executive Briefing Center, he continued to publish his blog, changing its content and readership to support his new organization and job responsibilities.

Tony’s philosophy on blogging stems from a book he read early on titled Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. “They had a very crisp definition of a blog. It’s the unedited voice of the individual,” he says.

So what does he talk about? “I talk about new announcements. I talk about how to use the products. I don’t talk about conversations I have with clients, but I might say: ‘These questions come up fairly frequently at briefings … so I thought I’d clarify this position or how IBM feels about this.’”

And every now and then, he’ll write about something personal — a vacation he’s taken or his volunteer efforts.

Tony believes his blog also helps open up IBM to the outside world. “IBM in the past has been seen as this impenetrable fortress,” he explains. “And I tell everybody … if you have a question about storage and you don’t know who to ask contact me and I’ll find the right person.”

His passion and commitment to his “Inside System Storage” blog have helped make it one of the most active blogs on IBM developerWorks. “People know who I am and they can trust what I say versus someone else who they’ve never seen or heard from before,” he adds.

Tips for success

Tony likes the progressive, open approach IBM has taken regarding the use of social media by employees. “One of the things that IBM did well is develop a very robust, simple-to-follow set of social computing guidelines,” he says. He cites “don’t pick fights” and “identify who you are” as two of the guidelines that can help people starting out avoid common mistakes.

And he encourages all of his colleagues to find their voice in the blogosphere, express their opinions on Twitter, share their presentations on SlideShare.net or post photos, graphs and diagrams on Flickr.com. His recipe for social media success rests on four essential ingredients:

Stick to your expertise. “I saw a great quote that I used in one of my blog posts that said that the food in museums was as bad as the murals in restaurants. It was a good reminder that you should focus on what you know.”
Do your homework. “People should read before they write. You’re more credible when you can say ‘I’ve read everyone else’s writing first, and here’s my opinion’ as opposed to adding little or no value to the conversation.”
Devote the time. “There’s a lot of work to create a blog post … gather the research and do all the stuff so you make a complete quality post. It’s not going to happen with10 minutes a day.”
Keep active. “One person told me a great thing: blogging is like jogging. If you don’t jog daily or weekly, and only jog every now and then, it’s not going to be of any value.”

He also warns people to avoid perfectionism when blogging. “I think people are worried … that they’re going to say something that makes them look like they’re not the experts that they claim to be,” says Tony. “Just like in real life, you can edit the blog and say ‘I made a mistake. This is what I meant to say.’”

A chat with Willie Favero DB2 for z/OS evangelist about is secrets for social media success

With close to 6,000 RSS subscriptions and 14,000 to 15,000 hits a month, Willie Favero runs one of the top DB2 for z/OS blogs on the Internet. So when Willie talks … people listen.

But it wasn’t always that way for the senior certified IT software specialist. Spurred on by a friend in Toronto who had started a blog on DB2 for LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows), Willie began his blog in 2005, “… when most people I dealt with didn’t know what a blog was,” he says.

His approach, which Willie maintains to this day, was simple: frequency, brevity and informality.

Frequency. “If you write a blog post once every two months, no one is ever going to read it because no one is going to take the time to check periodically. But if you always have information up in front of your readers that is of interest to them, they will continue to read.”
Brevity. “The idea of being able to read something that isn’t as lengthy as an article is really quite nice for a lot of people. They sit down, they get their cup of coffee in the morning, they check what new blog entries are out there.”
Informality. “You can’t write it formally like you would a white paper or an article. You write the blog as if you were talking to the person across the table from you because that’s what they’re expecting.”

He also advocates an occasional non-technical post — “Be careful not to overdo it,” he warns. So, for example, when he bought his new motorcycle or became a grandfather for the fourth time, he blogged about that. And his readers love it.

Soon after he started his blog, Willie built a LinkedIn profile, jumped on Twitter and started using other social media platforms, such as SlideShare, through which he could further promote and explain the inner workings of DB2 for z/OS. He even developed a small Web site which ties everything together.

Making a difference

Today, Willie is constantly bumping into IT professionals, both customers and colleagues, at conferences and seminars who faithfully read his blog and tweets. He recalls sitting in sessions when the presenter “will quote something and he’ll say, ‘I picked up this item in my presentation from Willie’s blog.’”

“Now that’s really nice,” he adds, “because not only do I get the satisfaction of knowing someone’s getting some use out my blog, but I just got a free piece of advertising in front of 50 to 60 people in the room.”

The DB2 for z/OS evangelist’s blogging also caught the eye of his manager. “My manager looked at my interest in social media and said, ‘You like doing this and we benefit from you doing this, so let’s make it a bullet on your performance plan.’ Now I’m supposed to write at least one blog entry every week.”

Willie really likes having his manager’s buy-in because it takes the pressure off his blogging activity and he’s recognized for it. He believes everyone active in social media should get that same support.

Here’s how to connect with Willie:

Blog:
http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/db2zos http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/musings-mainframeTwitter:
http://www.twitter.com/wfavero

LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/williefavero

“Server Chick” Uses Social Media to Set the Record Straight

Being referred to as a “server chick” on a blog post may not flatter most women, but to my IBM colleague Elisabeth Stahl, it was a sign that she had come into her own in the world of social media. It also affirmed that she was having a growing and positive impact on how people viewed IBM’s products and capabilities.

As a chief technical strategist and executive IT specialist at IBM, Stahl, focuses on systems performance and benchmarking across IBM platforms for the Systems and Technology Group.

“I make sure we highlight how great our servers and storage perform,” Stahl says, “so we can let our clients know that our products are really the ones they should be looking at, and the ones they should buy.”

From paper to blogs and tweets

In the so-called early days, Stahl would write “one-way” technical papers as her primary means of communication to clients. But as the competition increased and the use of social media in business blossomed, she realized she needed another outlet to tell the IBM story.

“I was starting to get very tired of our competitors saying things about IBM in their press releases and their blogs that just weren’t true,” she recalls. So she looked into creating her own blog as a fast and more immediate way of setting the record straight. But there was some initial hesitancy on her part.

First, despite having published some technical papers, Stahl didn’t like to write — one of the main reasons she chose math as her college major. Second, she wasn’t quite sure how much time blogging would take away from accomplishing her day-to-day responsibilities. Stahl’s first blog entry was read by two people, primarily because she asked them to. Now, her entries are read by hundreds as her contacts and social eminence continue to grow. “It’s amazing the contacts you can make with social media,” she says. “I’ve developed new relationships worldwide with clients, with business partners and with IT analysts.” Some, she adds, have responded to her posts from as far away as Nigeria and remote parts of China.

In addition to a growing blog audience, Stahl is building a Twitter following as well. She tweets whenever she comes across a paper or an article of interest she thinks would really interest her followers. “And not what I’ve had for breakfast,” she jokingly adds.

Building a reputation as an SME

Not only is Stahl convinced that her efforts are contributing to IBM’s bottom line, but, equally important, her own reputation as a subject matter expert, both internally and externally, has spread considerably — a personal and professional bonus, she says, that would never have happened so fast and so far.

What advice does Stahl have for other Subject Matter Experts who are considering social media as a way to share their expertise?

“Just do it!” But make sure to take advantage of the resources available. It’s also important in the beginning to ask others for advice, which Stahl says gave her more confidence and really helped her take off.
“Realize it takes time to do this.” Stahl remembers the pressure she put on herself in the beginning to do a certain number of blog entries, for instance a couple of times a week — which she thinks is still a good idea when first establishing a presence. But now, she only blogs when there’s really something good to write about and she feels passionate about the subject.
“You need to be factual, honest and engaging.” Stahl asks herself three questions before posting an article she’s written: “What would my clients say when reading this? What would my manager say when reading this? What would my mother say when reading this?”

“In the end,” says the server chick, “I found that I really loved the writing, I loved working with social media, I loved telling a story and especially interacting externally with clients in that way.”

Building IBM Social Computing Guidelines

In the spring of 2005, IBMers used a wiki to create a set of guidelines for all IBMers who wanted to blog. These guidelines aimed to provide helpful, practical advice to protect both IBM bloggers and IBM. In 2008 and again in 2010 IBM turned to employees to re-examine our guidelines in light of ever-evolving technologies and online social tools to ensure they remain current to the needs of employees and the company. These efforts have broadened the scope of the existing guidelines to include all forms of social computing.

Below are the current and official “IBM Social Computing Guidelines,” which we review periodically so that they may evolve to reflect emerging technologies and online social tools.

Responsible engagement in innovation and dialogue

Online collaboration platforms are fundamentally changing the way IBMers work and engage with each other, clients and partners.

IBM is increasingly exploring how online discourse through social computing can empower IBMers as global professionals, innovators and citizens. These individual interactions represent a new model: not mass communications, but masses of communicators. Through these interactions, IBM’s greatest asset—the expertise of its employees—can be shared with clients, shareholders, and the communities in which it operates.

Therefore, it is very much in IBM’s interest—and, we believe, in each IBMer’s own—to be aware of and participate in this sphere of information, interaction and idea exchange:

To learn: As an innovation-based company, we believe in the importance of open exchange-between IBM and its clients, and among the many constituents of the emerging business and societal ecosystem—for learning. Social computing is an important arena for organizational and individual development.
To contribute: IBM—as a business, as an innovator and as a corporate citizen—makes important contributions to the world, to the future of business and technology, and to public dialogue on a broad range of societal issues. Because our business activities provide transformational insight and high-value innovation for business, government, education, healthcare and nongovernmental organizations, it is important for IBM and IBMers to share with the world the exciting things we’re learning and doing.

In 1997, IBM actively recommended that its employees use the Internet-at a time when many companies were seeking to restrict their employees’ Internet access. In 2003, the company made a strategic decision to embrace the blogosphere and to encourage IBMers to participate. We continue to advocate IBMers’ responsible involvement today in this rapidly growing environment of relationship, learning and collaboration.

IBM Social Computing Guidelines

Know and follow IBM’s Business Conduct Guidelines.
IBMers are personally responsible for the content they publish on-line, whether in a blog, social computing site or any other form of user-generated media. Be mindful that what you publish will be public for a long time-protect your privacy and take care to understand a site’s terms of service.
Identify yourself-name and, when relevant, role at IBM-when you discuss IBM-related matters such as IBM products or services. You must make it clear that you are speaking for yourself and not on behalf of IBM.
If you publish content online relevant to IBM in your personal capacity it is best to use a disclaimer such as this: “The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.”
Respect copyright, fair use and financial disclosure laws.
Don’t provide IBM’s or a client’s, partner’s or supplier’s confidential or other proprietary information and never discuss IBM business performance or other sensitive matters about business results or plans publicly.
Don’t cite or reference clients, partners or suppliers on business-related matters without their approval. When you do make a reference, link back to the source and do not publish content that might allow inferences to be drawn which could damage a client relationship with IBM.
Respect your audience. Don’t use ethnic slurs, discriminatory remarks, personal insults, obscenity, or engage in any similar conduct that would not be appropriate or acceptable in IBM’s workplace. You should also show proper consideration for others’ privacy.
Be aware of your association with IBM in online social networks. If you identify yourself as an IBMer, ensure your profile and related content is consistent with how you wish to present yourself with colleagues and clients.
Spirited and passionate discussions and debates are fine, but you should be respectful of others and their opinions. Be the first to correct your own mistakes.
Try to add value. Provide worthwhile information and perspective. IBM’s brand is best represented by its people and what you publish may reflect on IBM’s brand.
Don’t misuse IBM logos or trademarks and only use them if you have the authority to do so. For example, you shouldn’t use IBM in your screen name or other social media ID.

The IBM Business Conduct Guidelines and laws provide the foundation for IBM’s policies and guidelines for blogs and social computing.

The same principles and guidelines that apply to IBMers’ activities in general, as found in the IBM Business Conduct Guidelines, apply to IBMers’ activities online. This includes forms of online publishing and discussion, including blogs, wikis, file-sharing, user-generated video and audio, virtual worlds and social networks.

As outlined in the Business Conduct Guidelines, IBM fully respects the legal rights of our employees in all countries in which we operate. In general, what you do on your own time is your affair. However, activities in or outside of work that adversely affect your IBM job performance, the performance of others, or IBM’s legitimate business interests are a proper focus for company policy.

IBM supports open dialogue and the exchange of ideas.

IBM regards blogs and other forms of online discourse as primarily a form of communication and relationship among individuals. When the company wishes to communicate publicly as a company-whether to the marketplace or to the general public-it has well established means to do so. Only those officially designated by IBM have the authorization to speak on behalf of the company.

However, IBM believes in dialogue among IBMers and with our partners, clients, members of the many communities in which we participate and the general public. Such dialogue is inherent in our business model of innovation, and in our commitment to the development of open standards. We believe that IBMers can both derive and provide important benefits from exchanges of perspective.

One of IBMers’ core values is “trust and personal responsibility in all relationships.” As a company, IBM trusts—and expects—IBMers to exercise personal responsibility whenever they participate in social media. This includes not violating the trust of those with whom they are engaging. IBMers should not use these media for covert marketing or public relations on behalf of IBM. If and when members of IBM’s Communications, Marketing, Sales or other functions engaged in advocacy for the company have the authorization to participate in social media, they should identify themselves as such.

Know the IBM Business Conduct Guidelines. If you have any confusion about whether you ought to publish something online, chances are the BCGs will resolve it. Pay particular attention to what the BCGs have to say about proprietary information, about avoiding misrepresentation and about competing in the field. If, after checking the BCG’s, you are still unclear as to the propriety of a post, it is best to refrain and seek the advice of management.

Be who you are. We believe in transparency and honesty. When discussing topics relevant to IBM’s products and services, you must use your real name, be clear who you are, and identify that you work for IBM. If you have a vested interest in something you are discussing, be the first to point it out. But also be smart about protecting yourself and your privacy. What you publish will be around for a long time, so consider the content carefully and also be judicious in disclosing personal details.

Be thoughtful about how you present yourself in online social networks. The lines between public and private, personal and professional are blurred in online social networks. By virtue of identifying yourself as an IBMer within a social network, you are now connected to your colleagues, managers and even IBM’s clients. You should ensure that content associated with you is consistent with your work at IBM. If you have joined IBM recently, be sure to update your social profiles to reflect IBM’s guidelines.

Speak in the first person. Use your own voice; bring your own personality to the forefront.

Use a disclaimer. Whenever you publish content to any form of digital media, make it clear that what you say there is representative of personal views and opinions and not necessarily the views and opinions of IBM. For instance, in your own blog, the following standard disclaimer should be prominently displayed: “The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.” If a site does not afford you enough space to include this full disclaimer, you should use your best judgment to position your comments appropriately.

Managers and executives take note: This standard disclaimer does not by itself exempt IBM managers and executives from a special responsibility when participating in online environments. By virtue of their position, they must consider whether personal thoughts they publish may be misunderstood as expressing IBM positions. And a manager should assume that his or her team will read what is written. Public forums are not the place to communicate IBM policies to IBM employees.

Respect copyright and fair use laws. For IBM’s protection and well as your own, it is critical that you show proper respect for the laws governing copyright and fair use of copyrighted material owned by others, including IBM’s own copyrights and brands. You should never quote more than short excerpts of someone else’s copyrighted work. And it is good general blogging practice to link to others’ work. Keep in mind that laws will be different depending on where you live and work.

Protecting confidential and proprietary information. Social computing blurs many of the traditional boundaries between internal and external communications. Be thoughtful about what you publish-particularly on external platforms. You must make sure you do not disclose or use IBM confidential or proprietary information in any online social computing platform. IBM confidential and proprietary information may include information regarding the development of systems, processes, products, know-how and technology. Additionally, internal reports, policies, procedures or other internal business-related confidential communications should not be posted.

Also, don’t post information about a person or another company unless you have the right to do so, taking into account intellectual property and privacy concerns. For example, ask permission before posting someone’s picture in a social network or publishing in a blog a conversation that was meant to be private.

IBM’s business performance and other sensitive “inside information”. Some topics relating to IBM are sensitive and should never be discussed, even if you’re expressing your own opinion and using a disclaimer. For example, you must not comment on, or speculate about things like IBM’s future business performance (including upcoming quarters or future periods), IBM’s business plans, unannounced strategies or prospects (including information about alliances), potential acquisitions or divestitures, similar matters involving IBM’s competitors. This applies to anyone including conversations with financial analysts, the press or other third parties (including friends). If you’re unsure of the sensitivity of a particular subject, seek advice from your manager or legal team before talking about it or simply refrain from the conversation. IBM policy is not to comment on rumors in any way about these issues. You should merely say, “no comment” to rumors. Do not deny or affirm them (or suggest the same in subtle ways), speculate about them or propagate them by participating in “what if”-type conversations.

Protect IBM’s clients, business partners and suppliers. Clients, partners or suppliers should not be cited or obviously referenced without their approval. Externally, never identify a client, partner or supplier by name without permission and never discuss confidential details of a client engagement. Internal social computing platforms permit suppliers and business partners to participate so be sensitive to who will see your content. If a client hasn’t given explicit permission for their name to be used, think carefully about the content you’re going to publish on any internal social media and get the appropriate permission where necessary.

It is acceptable to discuss general details about kinds of projects and to use non-identifying pseudonyms for a client (e.g., Client 123) so long as the information provided does not make it easy for someone to identify the client or violate any non-disclosure or intellectual property agreements that may be in place with the client. Be thoughtful about the types of information that you share, which may inadvertently lead others to deduce which clients, partners and suppliers that you are working with. This might include travel plans or publishing details about your current location or where you are working on a given day. Furthermore, your blog or online social network is not the place to conduct confidential business with a client, partner or supplier.

Respect your audience and your coworkers. Remember that IBM is a global organization whose employees and clients reflect a diverse set of customs, values and points of view. Don’t be afraid to be yourself, but do so respectfully. This includes not only the obvious (no ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, etc.) but also proper consideration of privacy. For example, if your blog is hosted on an IBM-owned property, avoid these topics and focus on subjects that are business-related. If your blog is self-hosted, use your best judgment and be sure to make it clear that the views and opinions expressed are yours alone and do not represent the official views of IBM. Further, be thoughtful when using tools hosted outside of IBM’s protected Intranet environment to communicate among fellow employees about IBM or IBM related matters.

Add value. IBM’s brand is best represented by its people and everything you publish online reflects upon it. Blogs and social networks that are hosted on IBM-owned domains should be used in a way that adds value to IBM’s business. If it helps you, your coworkers, our clients or our partners to do their jobs and solve problems; if it helps to improve knowledge or skills; if it contributes directly or indirectly to the improvement of IBM’s products, processes and policies; if it builds a sense of community; or if it helps to promote IBM’s Values, then it is adding value. It is best to stay within your sphere of expertise, and whenever you are presenting something as fact, make sure it is a fact. Though not directly business-related, background information you choose to share about yourself, such as information about your family or personal interests, may be useful in helping establish a relationship between you and your readers, but it is entirely your choice whether to share this information.

When you see misrepresentations made about IBM by media, analysts or by other bloggers, you may certainly use your blog—or add comments on the original discussion—to point that out. Always do so with respect, stick to the facts and identify your appropriate affiliation to IBM. Also, if you speak about a competitor, you must make sure that what you say is factual and that it does not disparage the competitor. Avoid unnecessary or unproductive arguments. Brawls may earn traffic, but nobody wins in the end and you may negatively affect your own, and IBM’s, reputation in the process. Don’t try to settle scores or goad competitors or others into inflammatory debates. Here and in other areas of public discussion, make sure that what you are saying is factually correct.

Be the first to respond to your own mistakes. If you make an error, be up front about your mistake and correct it quickly, as this can help to restore trust. If you choose to modify content that was previously posted, such as editing a blog post, make it clear that you have done so.

Use your best judgment. Remember to always use good judgment and common sense in deciding what you publish. If you’re about to publish something that makes you even the slightest bit uncomfortable, review the suggestions above and think about why that is. If you’re still unsure, and it is related to IBM business, feel free to discuss it with your manager. Ultimately, however, you have sole responsibility for what you post to your blog or publish in any form of online social media.

Don’t forget your day job. You should make sure that your online activities do not interfere with performing your job responsibilities or commitments to customers.