Brian Solis – founder of FutureWorks, PR 2.0 blogger, and revolutionary thinker – presented at NewComm Forum 09 last month about “The New Organization Landscape for Marketing Communications.” Here are the highlights of his fabulous presentation, which has yet to be released:

Solis asked “Who owns social media?” A very hot topic in the blogosphere these days, it was a great way to start the presentation because all ears pricked up.

He said that no one owns it and, at the same time, everyone owns it. The sum of all parts (of an organization) make a whole. And social media affects every part of an organization.

Solis then described social media as “the new gold rush,” where everyone’s jumping in because “it’s hot” and “it’s supposed to be what we’re doing.”

But, Solis says, the question we should be asking is: “How are we going to socialize what we (our brand) represent?”

And who represents your brand in the Social Web does matter. Solis recommended that organizations carefully consider who in the company should be entrusted with the keys to the Ferrari. He talked about “Twinterns” or interns who are in charge of corporate Twitter or other social media accounts. He said, “Are you going to risk having a Twintern deal with a blogger with thousands of RSS subscribers?”

“Are you going to risk having a Twintern deal with a blogger with thousands of RSS subscribers?”

There are other ways to be cost effective.

Companies today are still viewing Social Media from a top-down perspective…when they really need to be embracing it more as an evangelical initiative.

“Social Media provides a fantastic opportunity to build communities and create ways to get other people to go out and do work for you,” said Solis. Each division in a company needs to be “socialized” in order to build these communities.

How would this setup occur in an organization? A social media “team” begins an “interagency” within your organization. The new roles for this new communications agency would look like this:

• Digital Anthropologist
• Strategist
• Communications Manager
• Research Librarian
• Support Team

The most important thing to remember is that social media is about sociology; not technology. Effective immersion into this world requires experience, insight and perspective…solidified by interaction…and measured by relationships.

Photo Credit: Kenneth Yeung – www.thelettertwo.com

Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, is the proverbial gift that keeps on giving.

This book is a gift of timely and practical knowledge about the value of our participation in the social media phenomenon – from a business perspective. The Groundswell gift comes wrapped in a bow cut from the sophisticated fabric of Forrester’s finely woven research experience. 

While there is much to say about Groundswell and its astounding greatness (more in future posts), I’d like to immediately call out one side benefit – for professionals who leverage the groundswell – that was subtly mentioned in the book…a benefit that I believe will have a very strong appeal to the book’s core readership – marketers and communicators:

Getting that coveted “seat at the table” in your organization

It’s been my experience and that of many of my professional colleagues that the hardest part of our job is educating upper-level management and getting buy in. The ultimate and ever-elusive brass ring, of course, is empowerment. These sentiments, which erupt regularly in the blogosphere, were also echoed earlier this year during a Forrester Research and Heidrick & Struggles co-sponsored webcast based on “The Evolved CMO“ research report. According to the report’s executive summary:  

“Marketers want to be more business-focused and strategic in their roles.”

“…almost two-thirds of chief marketing officers want more involvement in business strategy development and increased P&L responsibility.”

In turn, these summary statements were underscored by the many comments from webcast attendees:

“CMO and CIO relationship is critical…”

“Alliance with CFO is key to build and execute on strong corporate strategy.”

“I heard somewhere that the average tenure for a corporate-level CMO is 24 months…why would that be?”

“CMOs are often seen as company doctors to bring about immediate change which – however – is a joint effort of the management board.”

“So many other C-suites see Marketing as only advertising and their feedback is based on font or background color of an ad rather than understanding the strategic importance of Marketing.”

“What can be done to increase CMO profile on the Board?”

“Marketing is an investment and not a cost!”

In the end, the report prophetically summarized: “CMOs have a great opportunity to transform their marketing team from order takers to collaborators, partnering with business units to drive the bottom line.”

And now – months later – as I was reading Groundswell, my eyes became wide when I saw this:

“Own the resource <for tapping into the groundswell> that generates the insights, and you have clout.” 

So, how do you gain that clout in your organization?  You guessed it. Buy the book and you’ll find out. 

A FUN ASIDE: I really love the title of the book, too.  Made me think: If you were on a flat wooden raft in the open seas and a groundswell began, how would you protect yourself from falling?

Would you give in to the movement, flexing your knees and absorbing the shock and the motion in synchronicity…? Or would you keep your knees rigid and straight (ouch, that could be painful!) in show of defiance and strength?  For me, the answer is the former, with the operative word being “flex.”

Finally, if you knew you were going to fall regardless of your stance, which way would you choose? Again I would choose the former, because the distance to the ground is shorter and the chances of breaking a bone would be fewer.  ;0)

Here’s to getting our social-sphere sea dogs, folks!

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Although this post may appear to be a Google valentine-in-disguise, it’s actually about an intriguing research paper (that happens to reference Google – over and over again) about the power and potential of people-driven companies.

If you work for a living, there’s a good chance that you, too, will get googly eyed about the notions put forth in this work. Executive managers will get solid advice for creating/sustaining a dynamic, competitive, and successful business. And if you’re part of the team ranks, the paper offers validation of the existence of dynamic, satisfying, almost Utopian work environments.

Cornell University’s June 2007 “HR Spectrum” newsletter highlights the paper, Dynamic Organizations: Achieving Marketplace Agility Through Workforce Scalability, which  was authored by two industry heavy hitters: Lee Dyer and Jeff Ericksen.  

Achieving marketplace agility requires the ongoing reallocation of business resources, including human resources, say Dyer and Ericksen. Therefore, workforce scalability, “the capacity of an organization to keep its human resources aligned with business needs,” is required for marketplace agility.

To achieve workforce scalability, you need two ingredients:

1. WORKFORCE ALIGNMENT
Otherwise known as Getting Everyone on the Same Page, a priority for marketing communications / corporate communications / HR

      a. Top-Down Process – Integrate HR planning with business planning 
          Is this a pipe dream or does it really happen in some  companies?
      b. Bottom Up – Instill a shared mindset
          Branding, anyone?

2. WORKFORCE FLUIDITY
Strategy for quick, seamless, and painless change management

     a. Acquiring Talent: Pre-Qualify Sources
        Prepping trusted sources, gathering referrals, and social networking are key examples
     b. Releasing Employees: Routinize Outplacement 
        Employees are “released” for various reasons–valid or not.  This report refers to clinical outplacement strategies necessary for business growth…this may sound cold, but it is beneficial – like a forest fire inspires new growth, so, too, does routine outplacement. 

     c. Enrich the Talent Pool 
        Niche competence doesn’t cut it anymore and neither does hiring someone who EXACTLY fits requirements of a job description. Dynamic organizations need talent with broad- and future-based potential as well as the ability and propensity to Free Think.

     d. Facilitate Interpersonal Connectivity
        Yep, encouraging those water cooler conversations can actually pay off – literally.
        More from the research on this particular topic:

“…breaking down barriers that inhibit communication in typical organizations, such as beliefs that knowledge is power (and thus should be hoarded) and the formation of sub-cultures and cliques, while building up infrastructures that facilitate communication, such as smaller units, communities of practice, open-plan offices, and state-of-the-art organizational intranets. It also involves enhancing opportunities for small, rotating groups of employees to get together on a social basis…”

     e. Expand Role Orientations
         This one is IRL validation of Item C. Essentially, dynamic organizations give official permission for employees to go Out of Bounds and Explore New Opportunities

     f.  Unleash the Talent Pool
        Organizational constraints such as static budgets and departmental conflicts further restrict the talent pool in its ongoing exploration of new opportunities

     g. Align Incentives
        OK, cutting to the chase:

“…first, to pay all employees (not just executives) well above prevailing market rates in hopes of encouraging the attraction and retention of the very best talent and, second, to base a significant part of this lavish pay on organization-wide results (e.g., profit-sharing) in an effort to keep employees focused on the big picture.”

The research paper calls the aforementioned items “Guiding Principles” but I call them Employee Benefits – both financial and otherwise – that would create an undeniable Utopianesque work environment…a dream scenario for employees, Human Resources, and – ultimately – the business. In reality, each one of these Guiding Principles deserves its own blog post based on its own merits.

Rewards come in many flavors. And, although monetary rewards equal employees’ employment raison d’etre, I believe that each of the above Guiding Principles is just as valuable as a paycheck.

What do you think folks? Can you put a price tag on OTJ principles such as out-of-bounds explorations, social interactions, individual empowerment, uninhibited information sharing, and evolutionary career training? 

Is it really like this at Google? Tell me. Tell me.

The possibility is givin’ me (and Wall Street) shivers, along with googly eyes.