I am involved with a small project for a wonderful organization called the Krasman Centre. I put together a couple of picture slide shows using different social media tools. Our Executive Director Tanya Shute will use the slideshows as illustrations of the consumer survivor philosophy and the way in which consumers are valued within our organization. As always, your comments are welcome.

Slideshare is even better.

Brent Uncategorized photovoice krasman

This post from Jane Hart ais a motherlode of great (short) comebacks that anyone can use when discussing social media with nay sayers and entrenched silo organizations. In the post from Jane there are some outstanding contributions from some very experienced people in the social media sector.

The post opens with a tongue in cheek video that gives 10 Good Reasons to Ban Social Media in Your Organization.

I particular enjoyed reading responses from  Harold Jarche, Jane Hart, Michele Martin and Luis Suarez. I hope to post my full 10 response later this week when I have a bit more time.

1. Social Media is a fad - I’m hooked on learning and using social media in my work and learning and have being for the past 10 years. I came to computers late, I’m an old fart in the social tech world. That said, there is a timeless quality in learning and using social web tools. These social tech tools appeal to deep instincts within me..to learn, to share, to connect and more.

In the nonprofit sector where I’m immersed, I saw quickly how social media could be used for engaging service users and how it could be a channel for creativity. I don’t see people’s quest for expressing their creativity as a fad. Having taken part in many fads over the years, I can say  that for me,  this is the best fad I’ve ever experienced.

2. It’s about controlling the message – Like other writers to this post, I believe controlling an organization’s message is a myth. Having worked in many nonprofit organizations, you quickly learn (most times told)  the official public message and with your radar on full scan, you learn the tacit or informal messages that circulate amongst staff, volunteers and service users. It’s great when the official and informal messages are closely aligned but often that is not the case.

The more an organization tries to control their message, the greater their rigidity and resistance to innovation, inclusive practices and their willingness to learn, especially from their mistakes. Social media helps to open up an organization through conversations with stakeholders. If you try to control that through canned messages, your conversation will be short lived.

3. Employees will goof off – They will if they feel controlled, underutilized, under challenged, bored and not contributing to values and projects they believe in. I recognize that goofing off employees are a sign of deeper problems in an organization.

These deeper problems need to be examined and solutions found. Social media can easily be tracked by management (thanks for this one Michelle) and it is easier now for management to intervene and supervise your employees’ participation on the social web. You may even see opportunities to direct their social tech interest towards the organization’s business goals and turn goofing off behavior into activities online that meets business goals.

4. Social media is a time waster –  I see so much time wasting behaviour that is totally unrelated to social media. For example, passive immersion in mindless t-v productions..you know the ones I mean..From my perspective social media is a time saver as you can filter out the endless flow of information that comes bombarding into your day.

There are many social tech tools designed to help you work and learn more effectively. Try Delicious for research and sharing your resources with team members. Or creating innovative project using a wiki. Yes, some of social media is fun and mindless, however even those experiences can lead to discovering something new that could have relevance to your own development, at work, at home, or for recreation purposes.

5 . Employees can’t be trusted – Yikes, you hired them because you felt they can be trusted. This view is steeped in a fear about your staff not following the organization’s policies. Like any work practice in an organization, social media needs to be spelled out in a strategy and clear guidelines given so staff can use the tools for their work and for amplifying the organizations impact in the community.

As a leader in the organization, this is work you need to complete. Once your policy and procedures are in place you can supervise your employees on their social media work in addition to all the other aspects of their role.

6. Social media has not business purpose – I think amplifying your impact as an organization is a an ongoing function of any non profit. If an organization is unwilling to use the tools at hand to improve services, innovation, collaboration and networking then I  think that organization will eventual lose it’s credibility and eventually it’s funding.

I liked Michelle Martin’s list of books to read for non profit leaders who are not understanding social media as a permanent condition in society.

Brent Uncategorized ban socialmedia policies motherlode organization, list 10reasons