Accidentally on Purpose Blog

In my post from April 9, Ed Herrmann commented and asked two questions that I have been remiss in responding to.   Ed, my apologies!  My kids are on spring break this week and we went away to the Poconos on a family vacation.  

If you have young kids and you want to get away for a couple of days; head to a Great Wolf Lodge near you.  You won’t regret it!

Now back to Ed’s questions. 

Q. How do we measure the benefits of social media in a way where we can put concrete numbers against it? In a world of management by objectives, people like to be safe and put conservative, measurable results on everything. The problem is that you can’t put on your objectives to “create 25 meaningful relationships and increase quality knowledge by 25% by Q3.” The qualities that emergent collaboration foster are not easily measured.

Agreed!  You have to really look at what your goals are and decide what it is you can actually do and then what is actually worth measuring.  We are in the early stages of this phenomenon which is why these metrics may not be so concrete. So think elastomers instead.  I am counting posts, I am counting the number of blogs covering a topic and I am trying to create meaningful relationships.   But, I’m not measuring against those items as objectives. 

The benefits of social media are many and varied from productivity gains, to knowledge transfer and even reputation management; but, I have only two primary objectives:  First, to make sure that those “talking” about SAP in  blogs understand what it is SAP is trying to accomplish and second, to listen to the bloggosphere and incorporate those learnings into what we are doing to improve wherever possible!

Sounds pretty basic but, basic works. 

Ed, your post from the 12th, SAP & Colgate - All Aboard the Cluetrain was rather timely — as Dennis  stated, ”Now if SAP could find 100 folk with stories like C-P, I might think about changing my tune.”  I look at part of my role as finding the other 99 stories and telling as many people as possible!  That’s a metric I’d be happy to be measured against.

Dennis, I’ll pretend I didn’t read the line about sacking most of the PR dept!

Q. How do we put incentives on participation? Again, traditional views cannot understand that things like meaningful relationships, quality information, and volunteer participation are not only the means, but they are the ends as well. When everything is about lowering costs and increasing savings, it’s hard to see a world where social content is king.

Ed, would you consider the “Imagineering Fellowship” as an incentive to participate?  And thanks, now I only have 98 stories to go!

The short answer is: I don’t know how to specifically put incentives on participation in such a generic context.  It depends on your objectives and the dynamics of the group or community. I also think deep down people do understand that meaningful relationships and quality information are important and does inspire participation; its the degree to which you consider what participation is that tends to make a mess of it.  I’ve lurked in the blogs longer than I’ve been an active participant and while that may seem a more passive pursuit, I can assure you that I was very active (just not visible).

Regarding your last point regarding a world where social content is king — I think the very fact that SDN/BPX has over 700,000 participants, that there are over 70 million blogs and that you and I are having this conversation is ample evidence that social content while maybe not the king today, has the bloodline necessary to one day, be the king.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS