The Wayward Celt

 Today my colleague, cohort, and WonderTwin(tm) Kelly Smith posted an announcement on our work blog launching our mission to reclaim our lives and work back from the in-box of dooooom. She and I, along with at least two other colleagues are tackling these beasts we call our in-boxes.

Ok, so maybe we’re not being quite as provocative as it sounds, but we ARE jumping on board to what we see as some rather revolutionary thinking: starting today we are working outside of the inbox. (#WOTI is the tag and acronym for “Working Outside The Inbox” and one you’ll likely be seeing a lot of in the next year…)

We adopted the idea from our hero, Luis Suarez, and decided to follow in his footsteps this year. Still sounding too provocative for you? It really isn’t… everyone can play along, it’s THAT easy.

Don’t get me wrong, email is indeed a great tool for 1-1 discussion in a transactional format; that is, someone gives information or asks a question, and in return another person gives or asks as well. Email is decidedly not the best tool for many things that we use it for today: discussions, decision-making, file sharing, file repositories, knowledge sharing, newsletters, and announcements.

As Kelly notes in out work blog: “We have the collaborative technology. We have the skillz”. And she’s right. Over the past few years she and I have adopted a much more collaborative focus to our work, using the various tools at our disposal to ensure we can accomplish tasks with as much efficiency and effectiveness as possible and have both been preaching the word of transparent collaboration for quite a while now.

The difference now is that we’re more focused, more structured, and will be tracking our progress. I KNOW my incoming email had reduced significantly over the past year, but this year we are going to be able to quantify it and show solid results… starting today.

How, I can hear you ask, do we intend to accomplish such a hefty goal? Easy I say: we’ve absconded with Luis’ Magic 3 step program, and added a fourth step of our own:

1.  Stop replying to email. The more email you reply to, the more email you will receive. It is a never-ending cycle. Mind you, this doesn’t mean I won’t reply to ANYTHING that comes into my inbox, but rather that I will be much more focused and judicious as I implement step 2 before I reply:
2. Use the right tool for the right conversation. This means identifying conversations/tasks (use cases) that can be accomplished more easily, more transparently, more efficiently, and with less cost, using a more appropriate social tool. Sometimes that will be email. Most of the time, it won’t.
3. Start moving those conversations/tasks to their appropriate home. This won’t be a light switch situation, rather it will happen slowly and surely.
4. Record progress, set an example, evangelize and act as a change agent. This is the one we added on… because without monitoring progress, it is very difficult to show tangible value. Additionally, without evangelizing and acting as change agents, we’re just doing this in a silo with no further effect, which isn’t our intent at all…

So what IS our intent if it isn’t to just reduce the amount of email cluttering our respective in-boxes? Again, another easy answer: we intend to act as examples and agents of change to help show our organizations how much more efficient and effective we can ALL be by using the *right* collaborative tools.

We intend to do this mindfully and conscientiously; to drive change for the benefit of us all, not just the individuals jumping on this project… given Luis’ data over the 4 years he’s been doing this, he’s proven the value and effectiveness of such an undertaking.

Want to join us? Its easy! Just start following the four steps above!
We’ll be posting periodic updates over on our “Notes from Rational Support” blog so you can see our progress. Feel free to comment there with your own progress as well and before long you’ll start seeing marked improvement. In fact I’ve heard told that your hair will be more luxurious, you’ll become more attractive, you’ll be promoted to executive status, and money will fall out of the sky for you…

Okay, that last sentence may not be entirely (at all) true, but I can assure you, reducing the amount of email coming to your inbox will make you a much happier person.

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Last Thursday I hosted my last Knowledge Champion Consortium session, an internal group of passionate individuals focused on knowledge sharing and content curation.

After 3 years of running this 20-40 person bi-weekly conference call, I can’t help but to have learned a few things about what I believe makes conference calls work, and what helps them fail… as I was working on an email to my cohort, to give her some of the best practices I’ve learned and implemented, I realized this was more of a blog post than a single email… so I blogged about it over on the Notes from Rational Support blog:

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/nfrsblog/entry/meeting_lessons_learned 

I’d be honoured if you’d take a moment and check it out… then let me know what you find works best on the calls you host or attend (if you’ve attended any I led, I’d especially love your feedback!). As I noted in the post, I’m likely not done hosting calls in my career with IBM and I’d love to be able to learn and grow even more through your tips and tricks picked up over the years!

Slainte’

(and yes, that IS a vintage 1960′s operator’s headset reworked with wireless Plantronics innards.)

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  … to do the same.

Last March I published this blog post over on the NFRS blog I contribute to for work. Today I am going to reprise that same content here in an effort to raise awareness via new venues, and in grandiose yet dire hopes of helping shift corporate culture towards respect for people’s time and efforts.

I’ve tried  leading by example, running my own meetings in the same fashion as I’ve outlined below (sometimes failing to abide 100%, but still, improving each time). Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be catching on; likely because the meetings I host are for audiences who don’t typically host meetings of their own. So while I may be a good example, I don’t think I’m reaching the right audiences. Perhaps blogging and sharing via social sites will help me improve that reach and perhaps, just perhaps effect some change in how we schedule and run meetings for the benefit of all.

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Problem: Ineffectual meetings. Meetings that take longer than they should. Meetings that don’t start on time. Meetings that go over the allotted time. Too many meetings. Meetings that consistently sound like this five-minute video… “The Conference Call“ by David Grady.

Solution(s):   

1. Don’t go. No, really… hear me out on this. If meetings are ineffectual, then no one will look at you poorly for bowing out. I can assure you, if you think the meeting is ineffectual, your colleagues likely do too. Now, I don’t mean “just don’t go” (this isn’t “Office Space” after all), I mean respectfully decline the invitation noting your inability to attend and make yourself available to the host to discuss why. Don’t make excuses, be clear about why you’ve declined, but choose the right setting for that discussion; a meeting invite decline with comments is not the right venue.
2. Speak up and help drive the meeting focus. Don’t let the meeting get bogged down in the minutiae of “solutioning” when discussing a high level problem. Only solution issues when that is the specific purpose of gathering together. If you sense that the meeting is taking a turn for the worse, speak up and refocus the group. If you’re becoming annoyed with the spiraling, more than likely the other people on the call are as well.
3. Having too many meetings on your calendar will likely take care of itself if you effectively implement the first two suggestions… divesting yourself from the ineffectual meetings, and more effectively participating in the ones you do attend will magically see your time slots open up to a point where you can easily and effectively manage your meeting AND work time. Imagine that!
4. Only call meetings when it is critical to have all individuals present, or when a quick solution is critical to success. Don’t call meetings to ‘keep people informed’. Share results, but demand participation from the attendees in the form of calls to action or direct unfettered discussion.

But what about those meetings you HAVE to attend just in case something comes up, or to stay informed about developments and progress on projects or programs? Easy. That is what wikis, discussion forums, blogs, and RSS feeds are for; staying informed when it matters!

Collaboration does not mean scheduling a one hour meeting. Collaboration can be done at any time of the day, regardless of your colleagues’ availability. Using internal wikis, blogs, and discussion forums, you can not only collaborate more effectively and have written record of your progress, but you can do so across time zones and geographic boundaries. Using RSS feeds, you can keep an eye on any updates from a single location across communities and functional groups.

(Ooooooh, here comes the work plug! In the interest of transparency, yes, I work for IBM, and yes IBM owns Lotus. That said, I honestly do think the tooling I am about to discuss is effective and worthwhile, and I don’t say that about much!)

Using Lotus Connections, you can build communities to support collaboration and reduce the number of “essential” meetings you attend. Because Lotus Connections has wiki, blogging, discussion, bookmarks, file storage, and many other capabilities, the online collaboration can take place at your discretion. Priority management can now be more effectively accomplished as you no longer need to balance those silly meetings with getting actual work done. And because Connections is built with RSS features, you can set up your feeds in the tool of your choice to stay up to date with all the items YOU care about and participate on your own terms.

While I use Lotus Connections for a wealth of reasons in IBM, I find the most beneficial part of it all is the RSS capabilities. The RSS feeds I watch for the various communities I participate in allow me to quickly glance at updates and determine if the information is something I need to focus on now, if it can wait, or if I need to pay attention to it at all. Information triage, as it were, in milliseconds. This has truly been the single most effective tool to combat information overload I have used to date.

So, now that you’ve divested your self from those ineffectual meetings… are driving the meetings you do attend with a new vigor and granular focus based on specific agenda items posted to your wiki (and updated later with details of the discussions)… and are globally collaborating with colleagues across time zones, what more can you do to reduce meetings and influence people? The answer: Work on your meeting etiquette.

Here are a few tips I’ve picked up along the way…  and I’ll say right up front, I have broken every single one of these at one time or another, so don’t think I am throwing stones in a glass house here:

1. Mute. Use it.  As a participant, use it immediately after you dial in (*6 on our system). Stay on mute unless you are speaking. When you’re done speaking, go back on mute. As a host, use “mute all” (*78 on our system) and use it often. There really is nothing worse than a great meeting being derailed or sidetracked by an accidental un-muted interruption.
2. For larger meetings/conference calls, turn off the dial-in beep notifications (*33 on our system) when callers join or hang up. These beeps are the downfall of almost every conference call. A late party will invariably interrupt the speaker (who likely has already started late waiting for people to join) resulting in a five to ten minute loss of productivity over the start of the meeting.
3. Get to the meeting on time. Seriously. Showing up late is disrespectful to everyone else on the call who arrived on time. When you show up late, you’ve wasted their time. Once or twice are forgivable, but when it happens consistently, those three or four minutes start adding up quickly. Imagine if everyone showed up on time, a meeting could start when scheduled, and END when scheduled, or gasp, maybe even early! Show respect for everyone else, show up on time.
4. Know your audience. When speaking, whether hosting a call or just talking during someone else’s meeting, know when it is ok to joke around and when you need to stay focused on the task/topic at hand. There is a fine line between joking around but staying professional (call it casual professionalism) and wasting time joking when there are better things to discuss. Don’t make a long meeting longer by joking around. Laugh, and move on; we all have better places to be and better things we could be doing.
5. Don’t multi-task. Actually this could have gone above as well as an indicator of an inefficient meeting: are you multitasking during it? Then you can probably divest yourself from it. If a meeting doesn’t require your full attention, it is a meeting you shouldn’t be attending. Conversely, any meeting you attend should be given your full attention, and by virtue, your participation as well.

But don’t take my word for it all… check out “The 22 minute meeting“ a six-minute iGNiTe video presentation by Nicole Steinbok. Here’s the link to the instructional poster too. Nicole makes some stellar points via some very amusing fashions.

I truly hope this has given you some good tips, tricks, or tools to use to make your day-to-day job more effective and efficient. If for nothing else, I hope it gave you pause to think about what you can do as an individual to help make sure your meetings are run as crisp and concisely as possible, with few distractions, clear goals, and shorter run times.

After all, if you can make a small difference, imagine what we can accomplish if we ALL make those small differences….

image credit: (cc) flickr user Ha-Wee

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  Following is the start of a conversation between me and my dear friend and published author, Mr. Anthony Cardno. I encourage you all to read through my comments to Anthony below and jump in the conversation with your own suggestions, insights, and experiences. This is, of course, a discussion, not the end all be all of twitter etiquette. In fact Anthony is even running the same post over on his blog here to garner other insights as well!

Getting right to it then… Anthony pondered on Twitter: “Wondering what I’m doing wrong that even when I ask for a RT, very few of them happen. Am I missing something RT-etiquette-wise?”

Not surprisingly, I have some very particular ideas about this specific behaviour (based on my experiences working in social business) and quickly replied with the following:

Jason to @talekyn Yes. Don’t ask. If your content is compelling, RTs will happen. Asking is seen as intrusive.

Anthony to @acdntlpoet Makes sense. And you know I very rarely ask. Which means apparently most of what I tweet is not compelling.

Jason to @talekyn kind of. Also depends on your audience, reach, etc… We can take this to a much more in-depth conversation

Obviously, that’s nowhere near the end of the discussion. Simply said, there is no single answer to this question. People are making their living as consultants telling you how to do just this. Not one of them has the right answer in a an easy to distribute formula; because the answer isn’t really formulaic.

As I noted above in my initial reply, the key to seeing your content re-shared is to put forward compelling contents. Oh, but if only the answer were so easy! While I can tell you at a high level what will get your content shared out, it all falls apart in the details and subtleties and actual implementation/ practical application; because not all content is created equal.

But let me step back for a moment and address etiquette before moving on into some best practices: Asking via Twitter for others to retweet you is seen as bad manners, neediness, and laziness. More to the point, it is a bit more indicative of immaturity in the space, or evidence of the size of your network (add totally inappropriate size queen joke at will). By immaturity in the space, I mean that coming from an individual I will see these requests in the same light as I see forwarded emails asking me to “keep the chain going”, or Facebook status updates asking to “post this to your status if you agree / just for one hour”, etc. From a corporate account, it just comes off as poor marketing strategy.

Exposing the size of your network isn’t really a big deal in and of itself (I can see your numbers in any space I play). Rather, asking for RTs presents the impression of a smaller and/or less engaged network, minimal confidence in your message, and generally short selling yourself. Now, I am not saying that asking for a RT is going to leave people with the impression that you are just a speck in the world, but I AM saying that it is one small action which builds how people perceive you when combined with other small actions and methods of presenting yourself.

Yes, I am talking from a more marketing centric approach, with a few assumptions in terms of how you use social media to connect with your audience and spread your message. The assumption is that you are a different type of user, one who is building a personal brand and using social avenues to build up your name and digital eminence. Obviously, if you are just using social media to stay in contact with friends and family, then the concern over perception won’t really apply. But, perception is big for driving and motivating others to share your content.

Rather than continuing to focus on the negatives of asking for RTs, let’s rather focus on what you CAN do to get people to share your content. There’s a great presentation here (http://nytmarketing.whsites.net/mediakit/pos/ ) on the psychology of sharing. From this presentation we can see that one of the biggest factors is determining how the information we are sharing will be useful to the recipient. Take this the next step and you can translate this into your own content by providing that clarity to the person you’re sharing with, so they can in turn re-share easily.

Let me take an example:

@talekyn: Two medical causes are important to me: Cancer and Juvenile Diabetes. Read my diabetes interview with 9yo Frank John:anthonycardno.com/?p=276

Good content here, and likely worthy of a retweet, but I have two problems:

1. It is passive… ok, so these are important to you. They are indeed important issues, but I am not compelled to RT immediately because there isn’t a real message here.
2. I have to click and read to determine if I want to RT. That is going to take some time, and I may lose the originating tweet before I am done with the interview.

Presuming the interview is compelling enough for me to want to RT it, I now need to go back to find the tweet to pass it on (or, one better, tweet/retweet from within the blog post itself). Most people won’t go back to twitter to retweet unless the content is REALLY moving. A well composed tweet that will compel a stranger to read your content will also be compelling enough to garner retweets without specifically asking for them. Compelling content which resonates with others to the point where they want to share with their own network is what you’re looking for here; adding social sharing buttons in your blog will also help enable users to easily share out your content to the spaces and networks where they play.

Let me see if I can “re-swizzle” (yep, I said it) your tweet above to something which I may be compelled to click into and retweet:

@talekyn: How Frank John, a 9yo living with Juvenile Diabetes and fund raising for JDRF, is putting me to shame: anthonycardno.com/?p=276

Forgive the forced self-deprecation, but I think this will work in your favour here: I switched it up a bit, made the reader curious as to what a 9 year old is doing better than you. Because if they can do it better than you, they can do it better than me too, so now I am intrigued and want to read more. It is a more active voice, but not demanding; compelling me to look further. Plus, the tweet provides me with the key points before reading more into the blog: this 9 year old is doing good work for diabetes awareness/cure. I am both compelled to read AND pass it on now, because there is a story here beyond the normal “please send money” charity call. It is interesting, much like your earlier tweet:

@talekyn #LifeWouldBeBetter if my 9 year old cousin didn’t have Juvenile Diabetes. Meet him on my site: anthonycardno.com/?p=276

The tweet above also has that hook, but unfortunately Tweeting this out at 11:30pmEDT on a Friday night means very few people in your particular audience will be seeing it, and you need visibility in order to glean retweets. So, now that you have the compelling content, let’s look at targeting the right audience…

Who are your followers? Are they cast amongst disparate time zones, or predominantly in one? What ages? Nine-to-fivers or in school? By example, I am at my computer from 8amEDT until 8pmEDT M-F, because of that, I am more likely to retweet something posted in that time frame than I am other times since my usage of twitter is heaviest during work. Weekends and other times when I am outside the house, I’m far more likely to miss content because I tend to turn off most social channels when not at work. Conversely, my fictitious high school aged neighbor may be more likely to see and subsequently retweet late on school nights when s/he is finally back home from school, extracurricular activities, and is “wasting time” on the internet.  Not to mention that demographic has a much different usage style of social channels as direct, near-real-time communication and may not be as inclined to retweet blog content outside of some of the more viral types of content.

Having a sense of your follower’s schedules / behaviours / demographics will help guide you towards those ‘sweet spot’ times to post for the greatest impact and visibility. If you use bit.ly or some other URL shortener, or use google analytics on your site (WordPress makes this stuff very easy), you can track some basic metrics and see when your audience is most active and more likely to marketing out your links. Also, keep promoting your content (with appropriate pauses in between duplication) until you see a drop off in click-throughs. Duplicating content isn’t a bad thing on Twitter as most people don’t see everything unless the spend time going back in their timelines up to the last time they logged in. Unless your users are all like me with a stake in the social business game, they are most likely missing a ton of stuff posted when they aren’t watching. Heck, I even miss stuff, and I am watching like a hawk and make a point to go back in all my timelines to ensure I don’t miss things!

Here ends the first round answer as to why you aren’t seeing a good amount of retweets, even when (or because) you request them. With your following of 490 users on Twitter, I’d predict you’d garner maybe around 10 retweets for some good content if you market it more than once. Until you are a celebrity and people hang on your every word, I’d not expect more than that…. unless of course you happen to stumble on that next bit of viral content and it spins out of your control… but we can only hope for that

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Yes, this was a rather lengthy post, and not intended as the end all be all to explaining social behaviours. I am sure many of my own readers have their own ideas and experiences to share, which I fully encourage! Please feel free to comment here, on Anthony’s blog where he is running the same post, or in any of the other channels which you may have found this post shared out… the key to being social on the internet is, of course, engaging in good discussion! So whether you agree or disagree, please let me know

image credit:  Some rights reserved by Ford Buchanan      

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It is no secret that anyone working in the social business world struggles daily with how to measure value and return on their investment (ROI) in the space. If we can figure out how to effectively measure our work and translate it into monetary value, we’re golden. Come up with a nice easy formula in the support space to show avoided cost, something like: “total clicks to payload x success indicator x %clients who would call = avoided call ticket x cost per case = avoided cost”  and you’ve got your end of story, right?

Well, not so fast (you knew I wasn’t going to let you go that easily right?). What about measuring those intangibles I spoke of in my earlier post here? How can you effectively measure thought leadership and eminence in the industry? Or rather, and perhaps more importantly, is the value of being a thought leader more important than the simply monthly indicators of engagement and content consumption?

I’m fairly certain you can see what I’d argue here…. that thought leadership, that digital eminence is actually the primary purpose of social business, everything else we do is secondary to supporting that higher goal. Sharing our high value content? Sure, that’s an essential part of what we do…. which goes to support the end result of raising our place in the digital world and the ultimate perception that we are indeed the thought leaders in our industry.

Let me take an exampled approach here, and bear with a few assumptions along the way:
You all know I am passionate about whiskies. No arguments from any of you on that point I’m sure. Amongst my friends (outside of the actual industry) you may possibly consider me as a burgeoning thought leader when it comes to topics surrounding whiskies. But why is that? Is it simply because I consistently post a measurable number of links to quality whiskies related content? Or is it because over time I’ve consistently provided quality content related to specifics of whiskies in conjunction with other efforts I make in other spaces to learn and help teach others about this water of life? I’ll bet you’d tell me the latter of the two choices. But which of the two is more important to you? Is just receiving the content enough to warrant me as a thought leader when it comes to whisk(e)y? Again I’d wager to say, no, it isn’t. Thought leadership is critical to what my boss recently described as “compounded interest”. Which makes perfect sense to me.

Continuing with the example…  let me ask; is my thought leadership in the whiskies world of benefit to you? My guess here is that it is, but only when you need it. I am often asked by friends and family for recommendations of whiskies to give as gifts; and I am happy to oblige, especially since answering those questions typically helps me learn and stay up to date on pricing changes and allows me to hone my skills at choosing decent drams. But it is only important to you because the issue on your plate is what bottle to buy for your friend. If you weren’t in that predicament, my thought leadership in the space wouldn’t be of value to you. This exemplifies my point about thought leadership; that there is value there, possibly great value, but only in a ‘just-in-time’ ad hoc model. Right now, as I write this entry, my eminence (bear with me on that assumption) as a whiskies subject matter expert is irrelevant since I am neither posting specifically about whisky, nor is anyone presently utilizing my knowledge about the topic, so I’m not seeing value right now, nor have I over the course of this month. Last month, however, my thought leadership WAS valuable as I was able to recommend a moderately priced bottle as a gift, making a big impact upon the recipient from what I hear, but also not breaking the bank to do so. In that case, I’d say my eminence could have a direct monetary value had I not been asked and had a higher priced bottle been purchased.

My point in this is to show that thought leadership can only be built over time, and the value only seen at the whim of the client with no way to predict how or when that value will be recognized. Perhaps, in the technical support world it will be in avoiding a call ticket because a client remembered a blog post on the topic which included the answer, or perhaps it will be during a sales call when a client signs a maintenance agreement because they recognize our eminence in the space and know we can help them effectively and efficiently when they encounter difficult issues….

Thought leadership is potentially VERY valuable in these instances, but (like the above example), is not solely a product of just work in social business, rather it is a holistic drive connecting all sorts of activities which combine to build that eminence over time. Eminence which can show value in varied, unexpected ways, which can often skirt any potential to accurately measure and connect effort to value.

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Having troubles providing ROI for your social business efforts in a client support context? Yeah, you’re not alone. As support workers, we deal with intangibles every day. It is actually a big part of how we solve problems at times; using that support intuition and gut feelings which come from experience and a roll up of all the differing variables at play, not to mention some well-implemented educated guesses. But how do you quantify all that into a reportable metric to show the value returned from the efforts?

Martin Hill-Wilson over on TheSocialCustomer.com had some great insights to share as they relate to ROI and Customer Service. He makes a point of showing that the intangibles of support can’t be measured, yet are still as critical (a fact which those of us working in the space already know):

“… the inability to directly measure something does not mean it is worthless. Quite the opposite. In fact the most abstract topic that has continued to evolve up the greasy pole of corporate favour is culture. This is illogical from the perspective of corporate Vulcanlogic. You can no more directly show me culture that I can show you that unicorn. Yet huge amounts of cash are invested by the C-suite to improve corporate cultures.”

Everyone who is working today in the social business spaces knows there is value. We feel it in our bones with as much certainty as there is coffee in our mugs (which is to say, a lot). If we were not so convinced of the value and need to be social, to engage with our clients and colleagues in these spaces, you can rest assured we’d not be spending time here. But we’ve all been tasked to find that one thing that evades us, the holy-grail of social business: tangible metrics to show real returns on the time, energy, and capital we have invested to be engaged in the social spaces.

In the marketing worlds, these intangibles are a bit easier to quantify through what Martin calls ‘proxy metrics’; linkages between tangibles and intangibles that indicate correlation if not causation. Imagine a television ad running for a week’s time, and measured sales increasing over the same period. You could make the correlation there that the campaign had a particular return on investment.  And while, yes, we do have proxy metrics in the support world, connecting these linkages from investment to returns is a far greater leap. In marketing, there may be a three jump difference from a campaign to sales increases. But what about support where we aren’t focused on driving revenue?

In client support, the number of jumps grows exponentially from any given activity to revenue recognition, be it direct product sales or maintenance renewals. Does a single tweet containing an FAQ solving an issue translate directly to revenue recognition? No, no more than a television ad for a new car can translate directly into a sale. Both provide the potential, but with so many other factors in play, how can you say that this one piece of content made the maintenance renewal sale? I imagine even ad agencies and dealerships find it difficult to prove that TV ad was the deciding factor for that new car purchase!

Unless the clients are providing direct feedback, noting the explicit reasons for their maintenance renewals, or lack of need to open support tickets, we only have indicators at best to help guide any potential ROI measurements. Martin comments on these client-satisfaction proxies as well:

“But remember, at best these are indicators and should not be assumed to be true in every market. In some, the nature of the product, the price point, the availability of alternative choice, are stronger drivers as to whether customer are predisposed to hang around a brand for any length of time.”

Without that direct client feedback, within support we can only rely on indicators like “visits to content” and “audience base” (followers counts) to show us reach and potential for increased revenue or call ticket avoidance. While call ticket trends and content visits can be easily tracked, I’d argue that connecting the two directly to social business efforts is a dangerous practice. Like so many other aspects of business, trends in revenue and client problem tickets are not tied to a single variable. Changes in the economy, product stability, support staffing, along with any social business campaigns or overall program efforts can combine to drive trends up or down, or even cancel each other out of one effort is successful while another variable may be causing problems (think improved products in a down economy causing sales to plateau rather than increase or decline).

In most instances, de-constructing these trends into their various, granular pieces is simply not possible. You simply can not isolate the various trends and look at the measurable components in a vacuum. Each piece needs to be weighed against the entirety, as a collective effort; each portion doing its own work and supporting the other pieces at the same time. We do not live in a black and white world, why would we think our various efforts are effective in black and white ways?

What does that leave us to gauge our efforts? Transactional data; simple indicators of progress or failure which may, or may not, be entirely accurate or reliable. Yes, we should continue to track those quantifiable items like visits, click-throughs, and followers, but not to the detriment of longer term benefits. Taking the television ad analogy again: that ad spot may not directly impact a purchase decision tomorrow, but the benefit may be seen 6, 9, 12 months, or even years later as part of an overall affinity for the brand. How do you connect such a compound and complex result with a single ad or campaign to show direct value for that single investment? Translating back to the Support arena, how do you connect an intangible, something which doesn’t exist (like the lack of a problem submission), with an individual tweet or larger social program to show any causation and direct return on that social investment?

Let’s look at a shift in thinking for a moment: what if we use transactional data as simple indicators, and then reset our focus to work and efforts designed to build overall relationship value? After all, isn’t that the social part of Social Business? Building that trust, and personal connection with clients is a key part of ensuring not only their success, but our mutual continued business relationships. The trick, of course, is figuring out how to measure those highly valuable but intangible connections. Activities alone won’t show that value… sometimes a handshake is just a polite greeting, other times it is the start of a long term complex relationship with decided fiscal impact, but there’s no way to attach value on the handshake alone.

Obviously I don’t have the answers here. If I did (and I’ve joked to my boss a number of times) I’m quitting my job and going on the lecture circuit for 6 figures per engagement… because that is how big of a deal this is to the industry. Find that silver bullet, that perfect ROI formula, and you’ll be set for life. As it stands, we’re all inching closer, but we’ve still got a giant chasm of a gap to bridge.

Until then, we stand with the belief that within a support context raising visibility to our content to help prevent problems, and providing solutions just in time when problems do arise is one more way we can ensure client success through our social business program. But more importantly we believe that open, transparent communication is simply the right thing to do for our clients and our business.

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Martin Hill-Wilson’s source article, as linked above: http://thesocialcustomer.com/martin-hill-wilson/37698/customer-service-roi-provable?utm_source=tsc_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter
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Full transparency: I am an IBM employee. This post is wholly my own and does not necessarily reflect any official IBM policy, opinion, or position. Read more about the guidelines which I follow at IBM’s Blogroll Policies and Guidelines for Blogging

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… to do the same.
I had initially begun writing this blog post as a personal blog to guide and help us all (myself included) to re-evaluate all the meetings we host and attend, and adjust in such a way as to dramatically improve out productivity. A funny thing happened, though… as I was writing for this personal audience, I began to see a much more effective use of this post on my professional blog, “Notes from Rational Support”. After all, it IS a work issue, and likely more poignant to that audience than this one. So, I adjusted my efforts and worked up a post for NFRS instead.

Of course, I DO think that post is relevant to this audience as well and wanted to highlight it here. So go on, check it out and feel free to comment there, or here.

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A friend recently blogged on ‘disconnecting’ for the weekend and the freedom it gave her to become directly involved in her life, rather than observe through her camera lens and behind a blog.

Her post got me thinking about my own tendencies towards observation and interaction. From day one I have always leaned towards the role of observer. I tend to stand back, take it all in, process what I’m seeing, and record for later use or action. Rarely do I come to a point where direct interaction is appropriate or required. But, sometime in my 20′s I realized that being the observer was a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, in that if I always put myself in the role of the observer, action will never be required. In a journalistic sense, the observer/recorder should never be part of the action/interaction, lest they become part of the story (a taboo in the journalism world).

Once I realized this, I put down the camera  and tried to become more involved, living life rather than observing it. I found that I enjoyed myself much more, but over the years have realized that I missed capturing some of those moments and images. Striking to the heart of this post: as with everything in life, balance is the key.

Now is the time to find that balance. Time for me to be involved, and observant; to walk that tightrope between fully engaged but oblivious, and fully observant but detached and unaffected.

Of course, this isn’t JUST about photography either, the same balance needs to be reflected within my own social networking. Do I pause to tweet, Facebook, or blog so as not to lose the impact of the moment shared, or do I wait until later to share out and run the risk of not sharing at all when the moment begins to fade in importance and impact? There’s no singularly right answer here, as balance is the key again. Sometimes I’ll need to share out RIGHT NOW, other times I’ll need to wait, or to not share at all as I live in the moment for me and my own direct experiences. Each instance is its own choice to make to strike the right balance for me. Something to think on…

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I’d initially intended to post here on this topic, in a more personal less work-centric method and perspective. But I quickly realized as I began writing, that the topic its self lent more readily to a professional post on “Notes from Rational Support“.

Rather than duplicating content, however, I’ll simply point you over to that post. Feel free to comment on it there or here, whichever you are comfortable with… if at all for that matter. I would like to hear your input on the concept and how I (we) can better encourage individuals to get involved under their own names and id’s, and work to stand out as thought leaders in their respective spaces. If I were asking -you- to stand up as a thought leader (and I am), what would get you motivated to do so? How can I help enable you to further your own personal digital eminence?

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I’ll be the first to admit that I am no salesman; that I work in client support because I -can’t- sell is not a trait that has gone unnoticed by me or others. But, as my career shifts and molds to new adventures, more and more I am finding the need to sell myself, or more specifically, my ideas and abilities.

When About.Me came onto my radar, I jumped at the chance to use it as a virtual business card of sorts; a way to roll up a general idea of who I am into a few sentences and connect to some of the other places for more information depending on context.

http://about.me/acdntlpoet

As with everything, this is a work in progress. I think it gives a fair representation at present, but I may remove more personal items in favour of more professional. Time will tell how I modify this based on usage and feedback. For now, it seems to stand well as yet another signpost in the ether connecting the various spaces in which I play.

Of course, as one of the people I follow on twitter noted: (This is a) boring concept with good execution. So I’ll have to see if great implementation alone will make this a useful tool, or if it just another internet fad/profile which I’ll end up forgetting about and abandoning within a year. For now, however, my profile has been built and will stand out there as another way to self promote, albeit in a rather passive way.

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