December 22nd, 2008
Enterprise social media: Don't forget, users are people too
* Jennifer Leggio is on vacation
Guest editorial by Scott Schnaars
I regularly have an interesting conversation with Socialtext CEO, Eugene Lee, about who uses our platform and what are they doing with it. Here, I’ll give you a test in two questions.
Question One: When implementing a new system, any new system, for your community, how do you refer to the end users? What if you are implementing social media for your company? Who is going to use the system? Users? Employees?
What about people (maybe the title of the post gave that one away)?
Far too often, I meet with people that that simply think of the end users as users. Sometimes with a capital ‘U’, but always users. Heck, even the lawyers are in on it with EULA. Simple lesson: users use word processing systems. Users use spreadsheets and complex, dated, home-grown systems that helps allocate customer service resources. Employees take up space and use electricity. Employees are a number.
People, on the other hand, have names. People share ideas and information. People form communities. People, are the backbone of your organization and their ideas, especially in a crumbling economy, are the ones that will make or break your company. People, not employees and certainly not users.
There are many important components to a successful enterprise social media strategy, tools, goals, design, roll out strategy and many others, but few are as important as who is going to use the system and what they are going to use it for. Who is going to use the system, as described above, are the people who form communities of photographers and a network of REST Ninjas. They are the people who are developing your new ad campaign and the people who are driving revenue and the people who play Ultimate on Wednesday afternoons. People save the day.
Next: How will they use the system? –>
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Jennifer Leggio, aka "Mediaphyter," writes about the "social business" side of social media - including enterprise, security and reputation issues. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
For daily updates on Jennifer's activities, follow her on Twitter.
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