Getting Real About Creating Change

I wrote a while back about social media and culture shift. I continue to believe that the biggest obstacle to social media adoption and integration is a culture shift, not an operational one.

But there’s a subtle point to be made.

The culture issues that exist in these companies have been years – even decades – in the making.

So, social media didn’t cause the culture disparities. They’ve been there all along. But the new expectations for responsiveness, accountability, personality and human focus as a result of the potential and visibility of new communication have put a big, fat spotlight on where those values are missing.

Social media may be part of the indicator, folks, but it’s not the issue.

Change is.

And change isn’t instant, nor is it usually easy. We’re not really asking for companies to embrace social media. We don’t really care if they’re on Twitter or blogging. Those are just details.

What we’re asking is for them to take a good, hard look at why they’re doing business, for whom. We’re asking them to communicate better, more clearly, more genuinely. We’re asking them to spend the effort to rework the way they do business to make customers feel like they give a rip.

Social media is just the soapbox we’re using to ask for that change.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, of course. I’d be willing to bet that hundreds of businesses that we would identify as not putting their customers first will tell you all day long that yes, indeed, that’s what they aim to do. It’s the rare, ruthless business that would say they truly don’t care about people (and if that’s the case, we can’t help them anyway).

But what we’re NOT doing well – collectively – is really illustrating the disconnect points where organizations’ expressed positive values don’t line up with the way they do things at a functional level.

We’re telling them to get on Twitter, but we’re really asking them to have more immediate and responsive customer service channels because their call center is a nightmare to navigate.

We’re telling them to blog, but what we really want from them is to understand more about the people behind their business, and what they’re thinking and feeling and doing, and feel like they really want to share those things with us.

I’m getting hungrier and hungrier for the next phase of this blog, because that’s where it’s all focused. It’s discussion with all of you about how to communicate, architect, and implement change. Big and small. Operational and cultural. Social media is one of the vehicles, but what we’re really focusing on is far, far more fundamental than that.

It’s down at the roots of these businesses, and in the minds of the people that have build them. It’s in the intent, the approach, the thinking. That’s where the pivot point is.

The challenge for us is to get thoughtful and articulate about what we’re really asking for. There may not be a one-size-fits-all approach to creating change, but we sure as hell can do a better job of cutting some clearer paths through the jungle that aren’t regurgitating the same old  generalized rhetoric.

I’m committed, and ready to tackle the tough stuff. Are you with me?

image credit: photofarmer

The Pitch That Worked

I tweeted the other day that I got a really great pitch via email, and dozens of folks immediately wanted me to share it. But I won’t, partly because I don’t have permission, but mostly because it shouldn’t matter.

Writing a decent email pitch isn’t complicated. And I know some folks are looking for the Almighty Template (to you, I say sternly and a bit impatiently: quit looking for shortcuts and learn for yourself). But here’s my assessment of why this pitch worked, and a bit of a tricky bit at the end that is really the linchpin of the whole thing.

Concise

We all get tons of email. No one – I repeat, no one – wants to wade through a tome of paragraphs and prose. Send a nice intro, a quick summary, a few key details, and let the recipient ask for more information if they’re interested in it. If I’m interested, I WILL ask for more info. If I’m not, all the words in the world aren’t going to convince me otherwise.

Personal

Don’t you dare try to say “I love your blog” if you’ve read the last three posts and are attempting to feign interest. I don’t care if you love or even read my blog, and that’s not important to me if your pitch is good. What’s more important is that you’re friendly, personable, and interested in me and what I do, and the audience and community I serve. We’re all people here, and while we have jobs to do, it matters to me that we can talk to each other like humans and not “bloggers” and “PR people”.

Focused

Know exactly what you’re asking me to pay attention to, and point to it directly. In this case, it was a project, and it came with a quick summary of the purpose of the project and a link. Are you asking me to cover it on my blog? Tweet about it? Take some action of some kind? (This one actually will require a pretty significant commitment on my part if I do it). Be precise, and tell me exactly what you’re asking me to commit to so I can put it straight on my to-do list if I’m interested. Open ended means that I have to stash it to think about later, and even with the best intentions, that can sometimes mean it gets forgotten.

Relevant

And that means relevant to me not you. A little research can tell someone that I’m in the social media space as a community director for a software company, I have a daughter, I travel a lot, stuff like that. Any of those three categories is at least a starting place to see if your stuff lines up with my universe. And while I know you can’t read my mind, at least let me know what dots you connected, as in “I know you’re a mom, and we’re hoping that you might find something like this fun to do with your kids.” And hey, this is shocking, but if you’re in doubt about a fit, why not ask before you pitch?

Sticky Part: Interesting Project

This is what it ALL boils down to, guys. All the PR polish, best practices, and well-written pitches in the world will not do a damned thing if your project, product, or idea isn’t interesting. And that means interesting to other people. It’s really easy to convince ourselves that something is big news to US because we’re close to it, instead of looking at the news with some perspective.

I know it’s hard. I know you get saddled with crap from your clients that isn’t remotely newsworthy, yet you’re commanded to go out there and tell people about it anyway. Your job is to either find a way to make it interesting, or be brave enough to push back on your client and tell them why it isn’t. You’re paid to be an adviser and protector of the relationships you have with your media contacts, not just a lackey that follows direction blindly.

That also means that if “interesting” is relevant to just a small, niche group – like, say, buyers of specialized medical equipment – then guess what? That’s who you pitch. Even if there’s only 10 of them. And again, you have to teach your clients that no, Gary Vee is not likely to do a video about it, and that they should be fishing in the proper pond, no matter if it’s large or small. Volume doesn’t equal impact. If they’re not listening, or if you don’t understand that, maybe neither of you are ready to be doing this kind of outreach.

The Unteachables

All of these things require a bit of judgment and finesse, which isn’t really teachable, unfortunately. It’s about saying to yourself “If I were the blogger here, outside of my bias, would this get my attention and why?” Being honest with yourself about that as a HUMAN instead of just the media relations pro can help an awful lot.

And I teeter on the fence all the time about whether you can teach people and relationship skills. Can you teach someone to pen an email that’s friendly yet professional? I don’t know. I feel like many of the people I know that do it best just, well, do it. It’s just wired into the way they work. I know personally I never got “coached” about how to send an email to a donor prospect. I just knew what felt like the right tone and approach.

I believe you can teach nuance, style, all that mechanical stuff. But can you really teach intent? I’m not sure.

So Then.

Have I told you all the stuff you already know? And if so, why are so many folks still struggling with this? Or is this all revolutionary and new and not obvious? I’m really eager to understand the Quest for the Perfect Pitch and why it seems to go wrong so often. Big discussion I know, but what the heck.

Sound off.

image credit: JonathanRossi

Influence, Perspective, and Emily

You want to uncover influencers, right?

Find those people that can carry your message, get heard, cut through the noise and get people’s attention? The ones with the most eyeballs, the most leverage, the strongest voice, the most accumulated “social capital”?

Let me tell you a story about Emily.

Emily was a donor to a non-profit organization I used to work for. She wasn’t an especially notable donor, but she was a consistently, quietly loyal one. She sent precisely $100, twice a year, to our annual giving campaign. By most fundraising “standards”, that put her neatly in a “nice but not major” camp.

Emily was also quite unassuming, but she was incredibly passionate about our work. She came to the events, but never stayed for the fancy-dancy reception. She talked with the kids. She was sweet, approachable, and kind. I talked to her often about music, books, and her grandkids who lived across the country. She taught me a bit of Gaelic. I taught her a bit of Spanish, and introduced her to comics (no I’m not joking).

We had a conversation once about the idea of “major donors” and she chided me a bit about how we development folks were so focused on the big gifts. But she mentioned that in her years supporting our organization, she’d always felt like her contribution – however small – made a difference, and that we valued her. We did.

Late one year, Emily died. She was mourned, and missed.

About a month later, I got a call from an attorney representing Emily’s estate. She had made some provisions in her will, one of which was that my organization was to be the recipient of a $5 million dollar endowment gift.

$5 million. That amount made an enormous difference to my organization in one shot.

In the traditional sense, Emily was never the person we would have identified as “influential”. Ever. She was a routine donor that didn’t make a lot of noise, insist on a board seat, volunteer on committees, or throw big money at capital campaigns. She cared nothing for having her name on plaques or lists. By our standards today, her social graph would have been rather paltry.

But she felt like she made a difference to us, and we cared about what that meant. We treated her in a way befitting her emotional commitment, not her financial one. And in the end, she made a more powerful difference to our organization than we ever could have imagined.

Your “influencers” are right there. In your customer database. They’re buying from you already, which means they have the ultimate currency of influence that should matter to you: their business.

They don’t have scads of followers. They might not spend tons of money. Some of them don’t give a rip if you have a fan page, and even if they’ve “fanned” you, they may never be back. They don’t have legions of fans commenting on their blogs, if they have one at all.

Yet they are the ones whose trust and evangelism you need. You’re much better off getting all of your own customers to love what you’re doing than try to convince a Jason Falls or a Tara Hunt or a Chris Brogan that they should care if they don’t already.

Deliver the best goods to the people that hold the keys to your kingdom, regardless of their social graph. Because if you are putting too many of your eggs in the fragile, fleeting basket of influence that’s based simply on today’s notions of popularity and visibility, you just might be overlooking an Emily.

Special thanks to Jim Long for sharing his post, which reminded me of this story and reinforces the need for perspective when it comes to influence.

image credit: Randy Son Of Robert

The Dots Need Connecting

Social media is grand, and yes, it’s proving to be valuable for customer service in some scenarios.

But it’s exposing a big disconnect: the companies embracing using things like Twitter or blogs aren’t necessarily taking those principles and applying them to their more traditional ideas of customer service and the operations that support it.

Best Buy’s Twelpforce

Yesterday, I had a small experience on that front with my local Best Buy store. I tried to call the store to find out if they had a product in stock. Four times. No one ever picked up the phone.

In typical social media fashion, I vented on Twitter, and headed out to the Apple store to find what I needed.

In rather short order, @Coral_BestBuy reached out to help. But of course, she couldn’t, at least immediately.

As awesome as Coral is (and she really was), she’s part of the corporate team, not the one at my local store that’s failing to answer their phone. She’s a couple of levels removed, and while she told me she was sending an email to store management, the problem is not of her construction. She can only rattle the cage on her end, apologize to me, and try to make things right the best she can.

(Aside: Let’s be clear. This was a minor inconvenience on my end. No one died. I don’t need anything to fix the problem. But to me it’s pointing to something bigger.)

The Disconnect

I love the potential of using things like Twitter for customer service. We at Radian6 use it too, and I’ve had some great experiences with folks like Coral, and the teams at Seesmic, Evernote, Comcast, and the Roger Smith Hotel.

Some of these companies are really taking the intent behind social media engagement – to improve their customers’ experience – and bringing it into the operations of their companies. Or, perhaps more accurately, they’re building companies that are equipped to deliver those kinds of customer experiences in the first place, and they’re deploying the social media tools as one way to do that.

The trouble happens when the companies are building something like a Twitter brigade as a surface treatment, or an isolated channel. The folks manning the accounts aren’t really empowered to do or change much operationally, and there are still some significant shortcomings in customer experience via the call center or the website..

It creates a disparate experience, and an inconsistent one that still doesn’t reflect well on the brand. It drives people to use Twitter, sure, but more because they are more certain of a response, and less because of deep affection for Twitter itself.

For the optimist, it can appear like they’re trying, but that the mainstream operations haven’t caught up to the new stuff.

To the cynic, it can look like they’re chasing the trendy tools, and ignoring the underlying problems they have, both culturally and operationally.

Life on the Front Lines

I live and breathe life in the social media trenches, along with a super kick-ass team. We are responding to and experiencing the front lines of social media on a daily basis. So I get it.

And we are fortunate, because our executive management team looks to us to actually inform process, operations, and product development to help align what we do with what our community tells us they need. But that’s not always the case.

How much are folks like Coral empowered to actually change the broken processes that are affecting customer experience? Can she really call up my local store and make sure they fix the phone answering problem, or does her authority end with a sternly worded email?

What happens when you just park an intern in front of the Twitter stream? The expectations for delivery on the part of the customer might not match the execution ability of that person.

I always talk about offering solutions instead of just pointing at problems, so I’m going to try and tackle the “so what can we do about it” question in a separate post. But do you see the problem here?

If we go about social media from the outside in, it’s going to have a really hard time taking root. If  the intentions of social media are not wired into the function and purpose of a company, and if those manning the social media posts aren’t able to help inform and drive necessary change, it’s just veneer.

What Can We Change?

I’ll be thinking on this and delivering some ideas. But I want to hear from you too. Let’s talk in detail about not just that we need to bring social media into the operations, but how we’re going to do that.

Do you have thoughts and ideas to share? What do you think?

image credit: Quinn-S

The 5 Elements of Hard Work

In the wake of this post on working hard or just working lots, I had a few chats with people that basically asked “so, what is work that matters?”  In other words, what does true hard work look like?

This, of course, will vary based on your situation. But here’s my take on it. I’ll be curious to hear what you think.

Work with Context

This is the obvious one: the work that matters is the stuff that lines up with what you’re hoping to achieve long term. If you want to write a book, time to write is time well spent. If you’re building a community, time spent cultivating and talking to the people you hope will be part of it is contextual, and likely well invested.

Yes, And…

I tend to think that it’s not enough to just check off the items on the list and call it a day. Work that matters – the stuff that really moves needles – is rarely accomplished by doing just enough to get by. To me, the hard, impactful work is the stuff where you do what’s needed to get the job done, and then always look at how you can push it one step further to make it better.

Detours, Not Obstacles

Hard work is often illustrated when you see someone diligently working their way around a challenge, rather than lamenting their circumstances. It’s the very act of doing instead of making excuses that can demonstrate work that makes a difference.

Accountability

The discipline to measure and evaluate your work and learn from that analysis is what often separates the workers from the Workers. Demonstrating results, being willing to own both successes and failures, and committing to adjust the work accordingly is the mark of quality work, not just volume of tasks.

Stuff That Yields

Chris Brogan talks about the web enabling relationships that yield. I think the hard work – the stuff that’s important – is, quite simply, the stuff that yields results. Whether that’s better relationships, more money, better brand awareness and affinity, whatever. The hard work is in dedicating yourself to the things that produce.

So those are my five. Do you have some of your own? How do you recognize hard work when you see it, aside from just the hours someone logs?

I’m curious about your take. Sound off in the comments.

image credit: Eneas