Do you blog ?

Posted on 29. Jul, 2008 by nik in Commentary

feel  we are reaching that stage in the curve where the early majority and the incoming masses are changing over. We are crossing that chasm where corporations are asking , Do You Blog ?

It seems these corporations  go through this stages on a regular basis, everytime asking a new question.

  • Do you have a phone ?
  • Do you have fax ?
  • Do you have email ?
  • Do you have  a Web Page ?

Each of those technical advances has required a redefinition of roles and responsibilities within the corporate. Early adopting companies have approached blogs as an extension of their public announcement and press release platforms, they assign the roles to Marketing and PR departments  and task  some engaging employee with the responsibility of “letting everyone know”.

Though many more corporations are still dragging heels and raising excuses and for which I point them to some of the sage advice over on SearchRank.

However those that are posting new posts and creating communities are having to define what that means as a role within the corporation. The role of community manager will provide HR departments with some interesting challenges when it comes to Hiring, Firing and Promoting an employee. Like Salesmen before them the community manager is likely to come with a predefined set of leads, their audience, whom have tracked their progress and activities constantly. A community manager will be building new audiences and finding new ways to connect the business with its clients and in doing so forming relationships as individuals.

Whilst the role of community manager and their responsibilities is  being discussed by Tamar Weinberg and Connie Benson the issue of managing and employing for the roles is still being decided upon.

In many ways this is not too dissimilar to issues faced by media in hiring celebrities to host breakfast or chat shows. The expectation of that mass of interested followers add value to the celebrity and can add value to that companies brand.

What will be interesting to watch are not the first hires into new roles for corporations but how those corporations deal with transition and change of those community managers.

No matter what happens I certainly hope they Blog it.

Thanks for reading.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Policy Presumptions.

Posted on 29. Jul, 2008 by nik in blog

If you are an employee in either fulltime or contracted work then it is likely you have signed a contract of employment.

That contract will, in an ideal world,  detail what you agree to provide the company and in return what the company will provide you. It should point you in the direction of the variety of policies and procedures on which the company is standardised.

From experience these procedures now include such gems as

  • telephone and/or facsimile usage
  • use of the photocopier
  • use of email
  • use of the internet
  • complaints procedures

I wonder then at what point the HR departments will dip into the boundaries of employee/employer relationships to attempt to outline Social Media and Social Network utilisation ?

The growth of SoMe ( Social media )  in business has followed the same curve as Email  and Internet Access has.Corporations are attempting to bestow some level of control over an employees access to , or time wasting actions of, those tools.

Some might argue that SoMe is not a tool and that it is a different beast to Email or the Internet and that with policies currently in place for internet access within the work place that this is ground already covered.

Thanks though to the growing success of mobile broadband internet access and  services like Lifecast and Qik employees can sidestep firewalls, and control policies laid down by IT administrators and can access sites and  content directly.

Which leads me to wonder where the conversation is occuring in respect  to  what companies  will be setting as employment policies to control staff who blog, photograph , Qik or livecast any amount of ideas, commentary or video media direct from their phones ?

A quick google for the terms around social media and HR or employment law clearly takes us back to the current Fear , Uncertainty and Douby stories in regards to how HR departments are using Social Networks to dig into the backgrounds of their potential employees.  Where are the articles , the blogs, the twitter comments in which HR departments and recruitment agencies demonstrate a positive and educated response to the arrival of Social Media in the workplace ?

I look forward to you feedback,links and responses.

Thanks for reading.

Popularity: 3% [?]