Short Notes from 4/10-12 Social Media Summit

Attended Social Media Summit held by American Learning Institute a couple of weeks ago with 50-70 others from all walks of industry and agencies. Great primer on philosophy of social media as well as some great tips and ideas passed along from presenters from social media industries.

Here are some short takes and lessons learned from the summit:

Think big; start small; scale up

The dialogue about our organization is out there happening- we can choose to be a part of it or we can stick our head in the sand.

If the USFS doesn’t participate it will not stay relevant in today’s or tomorrow’s discussions.

Candor is expected & respected

Blogs should contain insight not found in other locations- don’t just regurgitate info.

Don’t wait for crisis to start participating- build credibility (earn your way in).

It’s all about people to people communications- blogs build relationships

Don’t be dissuaded by the current content of blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other social media. Look through that to what the tools can accomplish if used in a business sense.

Leadership must become comfortable with multi-directional cross influencing. Past information flow was usually top down or bottom up- today’s information is crossing all lines as well as flowing up and down. Makes most traditional leaders uncomfortable- apparent loss of control of messaging. Orgs must cede levels of control in order to credibly participate in the conversation.

In persuading leadership:

Focus on benefits, not technology or risks- most won’t understand technology and
will be risk averse.
Don’t position this as something completely new- fear of the radical change.
We’ve moved through e-mail, Blackberries, etc.- this is just the next step.

Use betas and move quickly- deploy beta and let it loose on the users. They’ll let
you know whether or not it’s any good & what needs changing.

Don’t get hung up on measurement- these tools are inexpensive and easy to
change; if it takes off, the users will make the business case.

Create blog policy before beginning internal or external blogging

Sun Microsystems policy: (1) Be interesting
(2) Don’t be stupid
(3) We will not back you in a lawsuit
Politeness rules: No sex, religion, politics or profanity
Leadership writes their own blogs- no ghost writing! If they don’t have the time or
capability- don’t blog!!


Blog on a regular schedule & be up front, casual & conversational.

Gain a champion within the FS- Kimbell ??

Monitor your own blogs, not just the blogs talking about you. Thank bloggers when they get info right about your organization.

Use blogs to drive readers to value-rich content.

Gotchas: Legal
Corporate culture
Review processes (legal, PAO, line officers)
Recognizing where this technology doesn’t fit

Control the employee bloggers, not the posts!!

Find great bloggers that have: (1) personality
(2) motivation
(3) skills
and I’ll add: TIME

Builds Word of Mouth: (1) Give people and interesting topic
(2) Use Social Media tools

No matter what you think the FS is, it is what our users see/get/experience.

Blogs/social media are a permanent record.

If you want to view some of the presentations from the summit:

http://ali2007socialmedia.wordpress.com/

My Fire Space

Some in the fire organization are using a public internet site called My Fire Community to exchange information and share personal experiences. How can we make it easier for our folks to get where they need and want to go?

Emergence, Transparency, Sharing in Web 2.0

Here is a link to a five minute video that helps us better understand moving from guarding and hoarding behavior toward sharing and contributing. Remember that information is diffusive: It tends to leak when not guarded and hoarded. The more it leaks the more there is. A virtual breeder reactor for knowledge and wisdom is at our fingertips when be realize the power of simple tools that enhance creative, joint problem solving, design, and development of systems.

Executives discuss how the modern Web is impacting IT
At the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, ZDNet Editor in Chief Dan Farber talks to Ross Mayfield, CEO of SocialText; Matthew Glotzbach, product management director of Google Enterprise; and Satish Dharmaraj, CEO of Zimbra, about why CIOs are starting to implement Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise.
5 minutes 4 seconds Apr 18, 2007 3:55:00 PM

Manifesting the Manifesto

According to Wikipedia, "a manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions. Manifestos are often political in nature."

This might coincide with an existing new agency initiative known as Foundational Principles. Though, it's difficult to know for sure because I'm not in the loop, nor do I know anyone who is in the loop. This brings me to my larger question, if engaging in generative dialog will allow groups to co-create things such as a Pinecone Manifesto, then how do we locate the 'uniquley prepared individuals' who hold a piece to the emerging puzzle? How do willing co-creators find one another when they want to self-organize around a particular topic, inspiration, etc.?

The Pine Cone Manifesto

I've been asked to write a manifesto on using social media in the Forest Service. Having never written one, the prospect is a bit daunting. Nonetheless, it is a wonderful idea. We already have an ample supply of strategic plans, mission statements, goals and objectives. A manifesto implies an urgency, perhaps even an insurgency. Frankly, we need to light some fires to revive the spirit of this organization.

When Aldo Leopold became deputy supervisor on the Carson in 1911, he founded and edited a forest newsletter called The Pine Cone. In the first issue, Leopold stated his objective was to promote esprit de corps. He also asked his rangers to contribute articles so that their collective knowledge would help the Forest Service better serve the public. We need to do the same today.

Pine cones are a great metaphor. They contain within themselves the seeds of their own regeneration. If the Forest Service is to continue as a model of what government can be, and should be, change and growth must come from the inside. We need to tap the intelligence and skills of a very talented workforce. I believe that social media can help to do that. But, like pine cones, it often takes a fire to open.

Note: By starting this thread, I am asking you to help write The Pine Cone Manifesto as a collective document. We expect that it will soon be part of an editable wiki that you can all edit. For now, I would love to have your comments.