corporate - TheWayoftheWeb

Interesting take on digital employment prospects…

November 23, 2008 By Dan Thornton 13 Comments

Here’s an interesting, possibly controversial, possibly visionary approach to restructuring from Giles Rhys Jones and Jonathan MacDonald. Both blogs are essential reading.

I’d be interested in seeing whether people agree or violently disagree… Certainly makes more sense than the vague notion of an impending headcount reduction based on undisclosed criteria.

(Most definitely a comment not related to any particular company, including my current employers!)

Edit: In a moment of incompetence, I forgot to point out that it’s in relation to media companies.

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Filed Under: Business, Digital Culture Tagged With: Business, corporate, cutting, digital, Digital Culture, employee, employer, employment, planning, strategy

Still waiting for the IT revolution…

November 16, 2008 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

Back in January 2007, I wrote about how ‘IT could lead the revolution‘, hypothesizing how the IT Support in a company could become valuable for more than just supporting locked down computers – and how they could lead change by allowing everyone to download, install and play with new internet technology, and that responding to the risks this inherently raises means they would be up-to-date and possibly even generating their own ideas and technology.

Since then, the rise of social media etc has seen even more demand for toolbar plugins and access to Adobe Air etc, yet i’m not aware of any firm with IT support that actively operates in this way.

So I’ll throw it back out there and see if anyone knows of a proactive IT dept which encourages users to experiment, and enjoys dealing with the challenges this creates – because there’s even more of a need for that support now than there was 22 months ago.

Particularly as it’s a great way to ensure that human on-site interaction is needed, safeguarding jobs and possibly driving new revenues, rather than increasing automation, documentation and distance encouraging outsourcing.

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Filed Under: Business, Digital Culture Tagged With: Business, company, corporate, Digital Culture, formal, improvements, information technology, IT, it support, revolution

Corporate twitter acounts spawn 'Twitteriocy'

October 1, 2008 By Dan Thornton 1 Comment

Picked up via Pistachio Consulting, is Jeremy Pepper’s post on ‘Twitteriocy’, or some simple rules on how to use a corporate Twitter account, and basic etiquette – inspired by a personal encounter with someone following him.

While I don’t think microblogging benefits from too strict a set of rules, the guidelines he lays out are simple and provide a pretty good grounding.

Be yourself, don’t follow everyone back, use a decent client like Tweetdeck, be engaged, be personable, be responsive, be a person, and remember that social media, including microblogging, doesn’t work for every company or individual.

So something very similar to the best practice for all social media!

I’d add:

Be realistic, and don’t expect 1000 followers overnight, or 1000 referrals from every link you post.
Stick with it – if you’re going to use these tools, be prepared for the mid-to-long term commitment needed. It took me two attempts at using Twitter to understand why it was so invaluable and addictive. And far longer to try and find the right level between addiction and a reasonable amount of time investment.
It might still be worth registering your brand name to stop ‘brandjacking‘, but use it to lead people to your real representatives.

Any more?

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Filed Under: Microblogging Tagged With: brandjacking, corporate, etiquette, guidelines, jeremy pepper, pistachio, rules, twitter, twitteriocy

Sometimes it’s best just to step back…

September 4, 2008 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

I actually intended to write a post about Digg today, and got halfway through it, when I realised that it would actually benefit from a bit more thought, research and polishing.

It comes on top of a few days which have seen several plans need to be adapted or comprimised, and several challenges. And it’s reminded me that although many of the people I work with have understood or seen the benefit of social media and community as part of the overall strategies for marketing and the business as a whole, there’s still a lot of work to make it more integrated, show more of the benefits, and recognise where improvements can be made.

It’s easy to put the blame on other people. ‘They’ just don’t understand. ‘They’ just don’t get it. Surely it’s obvious that ‘everyone’ is becoming networked? Why can’t people just get what I’m doing and do everything I ask/need/wish for?

But with a bit of perspective, things get a bit clearer. All the people I deal with on a daily basis have lots of concerns, and the use of social media is just one part of their jobs/roles/lives/plans – and for some it’s a fairly small part.

And that’s how it should be at the moment.

Eventually, I believe that the tool of social media should be integral to everything we do. And it’s something I often hear within the social media echo chamber. But in reality, it’s down to people in roles like mine to drive results, work through problems, and interact properly with others to ensure there things happen, and that everyone within the company benefits.

It’s ironic really – using something so social starts with me re-evaluating the individual role I play and how I play it!

(For those expecting a post concerning Digg, it’ll come tomorrow, I promise!)

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