We Don't Need No Stinking Social Media

I need your help. Why is it that as we get older, so many of us lose the desire to learn? Where is the fun in that? A few years ago, I was nearly sucked into it myself—at least for a few minutes. A half-dozen of us were sitting in a coffee shop talking about growing our businesses and conversation turned to Twitter—about its uselessness. As I drove back to my office, I thought, "The six of us ought to go tell the twenty million people using Twitter how foolish they are." With that utterance, I realized how I had been drug into the world of stasis. I spent the subsequent three days immersed in social media, studying Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and numerous other social tools. Now I am perplexed on how to get others to see the value. Let me fill you in on what I have learned about teaching people, maybe you can point out my flaw.

Learning Patterns

This is important to me since I like teaching people. It is my conviction that each time I interact with someone they should receive value from our meeting. Their significance could be through a connection to another person or giving them a tidbit of knowledge. Even through this blog, the goal is to educate—both you and me. I have read about various adoption patterns—ones classifying people as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards—and I have simpler way to look at the problem. It appears that people can be classified into three broad groups—Facebook Facet, Bring It On Bunch, and Forget It Forum. The two at the opposite ends of that list are most intriguing to me.

The Bring It On Bunch

Surprisingly, the Bring It On Bunch is not the youngest. This group's ages range from 30 to 50. I was expecting it to consist primarily of Gen-X and Gen-Y. The Bring It On Bunch were the Twitter initiates five or more years ago and quickly saw the value of LinkedIn for expanding their network. At that time their age span was 30 to 45. There is something about the 30-year maturation point that transforms people from bagel-eating broadcasters to knowledge-sharing networkers.

Forget It Forum

The Forget It Forum spans a very wide age range from 20 to 80 with two bubbles in the undereducated twenty-somethings and the that's-beneath-me 50 plus crowd. They have abandoned learning because they seem to believe that they know everything important. Be it that they are pumping gas, eyeing the next C-level position, or somewhere in between, they are the ones that will be lost if their positions are outsourced. The Forget It Forum is disinterested and, possibly, incapable of learning anything knew. They advance and excel in politics rather than knowledge. Their prejudices and biases impede their advancement.

The Facebook Facet

The Facebook Facet is almost exclusively under 30. They want to share their lives and rarely worry about others. They are far more interested in instant gratification than exploring new concepts for long-term gain. Not everyone under thirty is this way and many leave the Facebook Facet to join the Bring It On Bunch around the age of thirty.

Five Hundred Cups of Coffee

What makes a 55 year old IT geek, project manager, business owner, grandfather, with a BS in chemistry (heavy on the BS) qualified to make such statements? Five hundred cups of coffee, 100 lectures, classes, and workshops, and 25 years of figuring out that rescuing projects and organizations required in-depth understanding of people and culture. It had nothing to do with process and technology. The most valuable? The 500 cups of coffee. Sharing an hour slice of your life, finding out what value you can give, and watching people's reaction when you give them something for free is a world of education. The reactions are as you might expect—Bring It On Bunch, "Thanks, what can I do for you?"; Forget It Forum, "Yes, but did you know..."; and The Facebook Facet, "Cool. Hey, let's ride bikes!"

My Quandary

Recently, I was talking to a Bring It On kind of guy. He wanted to meet since I will most likely be on the board of a local IT professional organization. After my desire to run for a position was announced—I am unopposed—I gained instant friendship with every IT products and services vendor (aka Facebook Facet) within a hundred mile radius. But, I digress. He was not a vendor and his focus was far more altruistic. He wanted to increase the organization's social media presence and, by doing so, educate the membership. He feels it is incumbent upon the organization to bring IT executives into the social media world kicking or screaming. (I think he meant they would be kicking and screaming not us. I will ask for clarification.) I was hesitant, to say the least. Having raised three kids, I know the reception to unsolicited educational suggestions.

The Big Question: Educating the Unwilling

Delicious

With all my zeal and use of social media, knowing the value that it brings, and aware that most companies enter this world despite the efforts of IT, it was me that was dragging my feet on expanding the horizons. Am I a curmudgeon thinking it is impossible teaching the Forget It Forum a new tool? The old adage sticks in my brain—do not try to teach a pig to dance, you only annoy the pig. Therefore, I am reaching out to the greater social media world for some collective advice with one simple question:

What method should you use to get people, especially IT leaders, who are in denial of social media's value to spend the time to understand its breadth and depth?

Tags: Education, IT Failure, Leadership, Social Media

Comments

0 # Jack Vinson 2012-04-09 09:13

It depends on which of several takes you are thinking about. I bucket them into internal and external social media. Internal social media attempt to replicate the cool toys people have at home with something useful within the company. IBM have solid offerings with Connections. Microsoft have been trying (and reportedly failing) with Sharepoint. There are many other services that do good pieces of this too: Yammer (Twitter), Thoughtfarmer, MoxieSoft, .... This is where I have much more interest. I've written about it ... blog.jackvinson.com/.../...

With internal social media, the idea I have is around getting people connected and talking to each other. Essentially, taking the over-the-cube-wall question to the whole company. It can be incredibly powerful to receive help and connect with people all over the company.

Then there are the external. This is usually talked about as "how do we engage" with customers / suppliers / community outside the company. The usual answer is, pick SOMETHING because they are (probably) already talking about you online.

0 # Nk 2012-04-09 14:28

Try this:
1. Give them and iPad with the Flipboard application installed.
2. Show them how to connect to various content sources in Flipboard.
3. Connect one or more of the information sources to a VC or Info Tech leader that tweets regularly.
4. Walk them through the social network underpinnings of what they are seeing.
5. You can also use particular hashtag as a source of information in step three above.

0 # Holly Justice 2012-04-11 08:41

Well done with a nice sense of humor! I too am on a mission to help the Forget It Forum understand they are likely to be left out of events, conversations and very much forgotten in their marketing or job search efforts without a social media presence. Slowly but surely perhaps the pig will want to dance on his own?

0 # Todd C. Williams 2012-04-11 14:31

Holly,
I used to raise pigs up on Whidbey Island. They are extremely intelligent, but I am not sure they can dance. Run and play, but not dance.
Thank you for the kind words. We should meet over coffee sometime. I see we have a few friends in common.
Cheers, TCW

0 # Craig Brown 2012-04-11 20:51

Paul Culmsee from the Seven Sigma blog shared a model with me over a beer on this. What makes people engaged enough to participate? It's related to culture, structure and the nature of the problem at hand.

I wish I still had the coaster...

0 # Jack Vinson 2012-04-12 04:30

For some reason, I am hearing "fear of change" in the discussion. There is a great allegory that Eli Goldratt used to tell of the Mermaid and the Pot of Gold (or some such title). Many others have taken up the idea to talk about change and "resistance to change."

You are on a lovely beach at the bottom of a cliff. You like this particular spot because the mermaids usually come calling, and they are spectacular. Unfortunately, you have lately been beset by alligators on the way to the beach and they have been getting worse. What to do? Well, at the top of the cliff is a huge pot of gold. Unfortunately, it's at the top of a cliff that requires a significant effort and risk of falling off to get there. That's the situation any change finds themselves in.

If people are convinced that the pot of gold is big enough and the risk to get it is small enough AND their risk of not changing is big enough while the loss of the current situation (mermaid) won't be so bad, then they might be willing to give it a whirl.

There is a video here that walks through this in more detail (it's a little heavy handed on the message):
www.velocityschedulingsystem.com/.../

0 # Robert Putnam 2012-05-22 08:11

I like the story of the two old men sitting on the porch. Tom's hound is in the corner howling like he is about to die.
Ole Frank looks over and says, "Tom, why is it that your hound is howling."
Tom casually responds, "He is sitting on a nail."
"Well, dad-burn-it, why don't he move!?" Frank says in disgust.
Tom takes a puff on his pipe and says, "I reck-on it don't hurt bad enough yet."

What motivates people to act is the subject of many sociology, psychology and organizational management texts. In some cases people may be set in their ways, in some they do not see the value in change and still others just don’t hurt bad enough yet. :-)