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As social media continues to become more and more a part of our lives, the laws surrounding these new technologies continue to evolve as well. Courtney Love is being sued by a fashion designer for allegedly making libelous claims on Twitter (read the article on CNN.com). Countless bloggers have been accused of similar actions. There have also been a host of employment law issues related to intellectual property, privacy and hiring and termination practices.

As the law continues to unfold, it’s crucial for companies to keep a close eye on the impacts of the use of social media by employees. And, importantly, we, as communicators, have to take the added responsibility of educating employees about what’s acceptable and what’s not. Whether it’s an internal forum or an external site, we have to ensure employees understand what they can and cannot say online. We have to think through the implications of our digital strategy and partner with our colleagues in HR and Legal to define appropriate policies to govern these tools.

When thinking about the internal side, check out Bill Ives’ list of 10 things to consider when developing an internal social software policy. This is a good list to review regardless if you already have a policy in place or if you are just beginning to explore these types of tools. And, remember to revisit your guidelines from time to time as the legal environment continues to evolve.

In the end, a lot of this comes down to common sense. The age old rule of “think before you speak” still applies. However, we have a role to play in helping employees adapt to the new digital world of corporate communications.

A woman dies in the streets of Tehran and we watch it on YouTube. Reporters are expelled from Iran in the wake of election irregularites and riots, and we continue receiving news reports and updates through Twitter, on Facebook, through blogs and texting from those inside a fragile nation. One blogger writes, “Since June 13, the start of nationwide demonstrations and protests against Iran’s rigged presidential elections began, a clampdown on many of the leading reformist politicians, as well as journalists and bloggers, has been underway.” But despite those crackdowns, news and updates borne of the new social and digital media find their way beyond censure to a waiting world.

The human condition speaks volumes. What we are witnessing in Tehran, in a poignant and moving way, will serve as a reminder of the power and reach of Citizen Journalists and the tools they have to move stories from their keyboards, Blackberries and iPhones to the computer cloud that connects us all. There’s a dark side to this phenomenon that author Andrew Keen has written about in The Cult of the Amateur, a must read for employee communicators and thought leaders in digital and social media. For me, the stark images of political and social revolt wracking Iran, or US Airways Flight 1549 skimming down into the Hudson River, or the frightening video shot days ago inside a tornado in Aurora, Nebraska, serve as a constant reminder of our globality and how we are all on, 24-7-365.

Once upon a time, we counseled our corporate clients that a crisis can quickly explode from a single location to the larger company and world within hours. Today, with the digital information commons, quickly is slow. Now it’s instantaneous — and there’s no stopping the video, the words, the images or the sounds once they start. As employee communicators, we must know that businesses and institutions are facing a rapidly changing landscape shaped by this new digital world, the global economy that Thomas Friedman has written about in The World is Flat, and the explosion of myriad stakeholder groups.

The Arthur W. Page Society, in its seminal white paper, The Authentic Enterprise, tells us these converging forces are requiring us to be even more transparent than ever.  Where once we carefully timed and cascaded messages, we no longer control them. Where once we targeted specific audience segments, today everyone can see everything at the same time. Where once we devised and controlled the channels, today they now “belong” to everyone in this digital explosion.

So what does it all mean?

To build trust, the Page authors tell us, we must go beyond shaping perceptions to defining companies. We must build new networks of relationships. We must move from the classic caricature of the public relations professional shaping perceptions to actually creating a new reality. We must place corporate values at the heart of our work. And we must, above everything else, seek to build trust in a world that has soured on hype.

In You Can’t Go Home Again, author Thomas Wolfe tells us, “Lean down your ear upon the earth, and listen.” When we do, we’ll know that things have truly changed and we will not return to that place we once knew.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a company using Facebook as its intranet. Since then I’ve noticed an increasing number of people asking questions on Twitter about using public social networking tools for internal communications. Then, this morning, I read a NYTimes interview with Zurich Financial Services C.E.O. James Schiro where he discussed how he has been using YouTube to address employees as he travels to Zurich locations around the world.

So what are the benefits and drawbacks of using external or public vehicles for employee communications?

Benefits:

• Everybody knows YouTube – Most people have heard of YouTube. They’ve either uploaded videos themselves, searched for Susan Boyle’s performance, the evolution of dance, or told their kids to stop looking at videos and do their homework. Regardless of their level of knowledge, if someone says “our CEO on YouTube,” the vast majority of employees will know how to access it. There’s no teaching people how to log in, setting up a separate password, etc. They can click and watch.

• Great recruiting tool – Since not just employees, but the entire world can see what you’re saying, it can serve as a way to speak about the culture of your company. This can be a great recruiting tool and some companies are using social media to enhance recruiting efforts.

• Reflects your culture – Not every CEO would be willing to address employees and be followed by a singing employee (see above). So it definitely says something about a leader and a company who is willing to do something like that.

• Can’t beat the cost – Once you get a digital camera to record the videos, using YouTube to broadcast them is free. That’s cheaper and less time consuming than working with IT to share videos on your current intranet or setting up a YouTube-like enterprise solution.

Drawbacks:

• Watch what you say – For those who appear in the videos, they need to be careful not to divulge proprietary information or disclosures that run afoul of SEC rules or those of other regulators.

• Can’t control comments – Often just as or more entertaining than many YouTube videos are the comments that people leave. That can be daunting, particularly if an employee chooses to air dirty laundry. However, I think that on a site like YouTube, you have to take the comments with a grain of salt since it’s open to anyone and users can be (somewhat) anonymous . That said, the inherent unpredictability is a drawback.

• Remember when you said… – Whenever it’s up for everyone to see, people can pull up your words if you don’t stick to them. And the same publicity that lauded you for being “cutting edge” can bury you for being “disloyal.”

I would love to hear your feedback on whether you agree/disagree with the points above, or have others to add. Is this an emerging trend, or will tools that achieve the same objectives emerge for use behind corporate firewalls?

This clearly isn’t for every company, but is it a viable solution for any company?

I keep on reading more and more stories about employees being caught out using Twitter. One such example is that of a communications professional being negative about the client company’s head office location and, guess what . . . they saw it.  Is there a trend developing here?

Perhaps we’re all too familiar with Facebook, where you allow people to view your profile, and not necessarily everyone is listening to what you say. More often than not, if I want to see what XX has been up to, I’ll need to go to XX’s profile.

Twitter changes the rules. You can follow anyone with no restrictions. Updates are presented directly to everyone who is following you – your boss, your colleagues, and your potential employer. Your followers are therefore more likely to listen.

Think of it this way. On Facebook, what you’re saying and doing is on the other side of a closed door, your boss can open it if he wants, but he’s got to want to open it. On Twitter, what you’re saying and doing comes charging into your bosses’ office and lands neatly on his desk in front of him.

American Express, in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, recently announced the details of its next Partners in Preservation initiative in Boston. Here’s how it works. First, 25 historic sites in the Boston area are identified to participate in the competition. Then, the public is invited to vote online for the site they would like to receive a grant. A total of $1 million is awarded across the sites, with the winner of the national vote guaranteed to receive a grant. Additional grants are determined by an advisory board of local community leaders, American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

During the voting process, you begin to see the power of online mobilization. Supporters of the various sites take to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and countless others to encourage people to take action and vote for their site (click through the links to see examples). It’s a (new) classic case of a grassroots effort to mobilize a community around a cause.

The same type of campaign could have a powerful impact within an organization. Selecting a site or company-wide volunteer activity, determining which organization(s) to award grants to, identifying the best innovative idea to obtain seed funding – these are just a few examples of internal initiatives that could benefit from this type of grassroots model.

Instead of simply announcing the winning idea / project, this approach enables you to engage employees in the decision-making process. Not only does it create interest in the program, it also gives employees a voice in company decisions.All it takes is establishing some guardrails for the campaign (e.g., providing a list of pre-approved projects / ideas, creating an advisory panel to validate things along the way, defining a clear process and rules) to help keep things on track.

In addition, a program like this allows you to test the waters with social media applications. Many communicators and leaders are hesitant to launch new vehicles due to fears of having to introduce fresh content to maintain interest or having to figure out how to close down a channel that isn’t working or is being abused. Using social media tools for a specific project provides a defined purpose and lifespan and enables companies to see what works well and what doesn’t given their culture and technology. Those experiences can then be used to shape the future communication strategy for the company.

There has been much news about Twitter in recent weeks and months. Even the President of the United States of America has an account. And recently, Insidedge launched a Twitter account of its own (yes, shameless plug. But keep reading, I have some real thoughts for you, I promise!).

So all this talk in the media, among colleagues and with clients got me thinking about the essence of what Twitter specifically (and social networking in general) is all about. To me, it’s an expression of the age-old human desire to connect with others, to be part of a community, to be valued (maybe even admired) and to be heard. That’s it. Nothing high-tech to it.

Technology is in the midst of a philosophical revolution. In the early days of computing, the knowledge curve was very high and that necessary technical aptitude translated into separation from others as “computer geeks” poured in hours to learn code, etc. More time in front of a screen and a small circle of people with comparable knowledge meant the illusion of social isolation for these elite few from the rest of us who were rushing to make it home to watch The Cosby Show. Well, DVRs have changed that (unless you’re an Idol fan and want to see the whole episode) and social networking sites from Facebook to LinkedIn to YouTube and Flickr have changed what we do on a computer and more profoundly how we interact. Now, with basic computer knowledge, you can use this technology to connect with hundreds and even thousands of people around the world.

And that ties back to concept that we all want to connect. So to better connect my office, I decided today to launch a new social networking platform that is decidedly anti-technology, but with the functionality that has become nearly second-nature to many of us. I’ve dubbed this fusion of the bygone and the present “Old School Twitter.” Above you see my name plate, a little banner that I made and a stack of sticky notes. I will be updating my status there throughout the day. And my co-workers are following suit. My hypothesis is that this will increase interaction among co-workers and keep people more connected and demonstrate how a tool like Twitter can be effective in a work environment to foster collaboration and share ideas. See, I told you I had a nugget for you!

Let me know what you think of this experiment or perhaps if you’ve tried something like this in your office.

Related: Follow Insidedge on Twitter

Lately it seems like everyone is buzzing about new technologies and how they may be applied to employee communications.  Whether it’s clients debating the need for social networking capabilities as part of an intranet redesign or sharing insights about allowing commentary on internal blogs, it seems like everyone is trying to figure out the new communications mix.

Recently a member of a professional organization I’m involved with requested examples of CEOs twittering, because this person’s CEO asked if they should start doing that for their organization and for their people.  The subsequent dialogue was interesting with people espousing the benefits of the technology and others questioning what the CEO had to say that warranted its use.

As an observer to the debate I tended to net on the side of “what do you have to say” being one of the deciding factors, but truth-be-told, what I really thought was “know your DNA.”

Do your employees have access to the technology that would warrant Twitter appropriate?  Does your CEO have anything – let alone that much – to say?  Is your CEO committed to keeping up posts or is this just the “shiny penny” du jour?  Is your CEO credible with employees so that they’d even care what s/he has to say?  Or is your CEO simply an early-adapter wanting to hop on the next digital bandwagon?

That’s part of knowing your DNA: what are the demographics of your employee population? How do they access information?  Are they truly engaged in your business and business plan or are they more task- or shift-oriented?

For example, are you considering migrating to an all digital strategy in hopes of reducing budget?  Maybe if your employee population is 100% online then sure, an all digital strategy might work for you.  But if a significant portion of your employee population is in manufacturing and rarely, if ever, has access to a computer, no matter how much you save, you won’t likely drive increased engagement.

We’re fortunate enough to work with a variety of companies across many industries and time and again that’s what we ask ourselves – what is the DNA of this organization?  Once that’s known, decisions on what technologies or other tactics to use are relatively simple.  So get to know your DNA.  If you know what you’re working with it’s easy enough to design the right approach for employee communications.

Related link: ExecTweets

March 5th is a great day in history – in fact today is World Book Day and everyone is being encouraged into living literacy to the brink. World Book Day was designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and is marked in over 100 countries around the globe.

The origins of the day we now celebrate apparently come from Catalonia, where roses and books were given as gifts to loved ones on St. George’s Day – a tradition started over 80 years ago.

A main aim of World Book Day is to encourage children to explore the pleasures of books and reading by providing them with the opportunity to have a book of their own. And it is certainly working in our household.

My nine year old son and his classmates have this week all had to choose a book, read it and then write a review. And today is the really big day when they all have to roll up at school dressed as one of the characters.  What an ingenious way to bring the written word to life in a really creative manner.

I also heard a news report from the BBC in London informing us that literacy skills were higher now than ever before and that hundreds of schools and thousand of people will be getting involved in this great initiative.

One of the other more bazaar facts they highlighted was about Marcel Proust’s “A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu” (translated as Remembrance of Things Past). It is, so they tell us, the world’s longest novel, according to Guinness World Records.  It is described as a profoundly influential 13-volume work contains 9,609,000 characters. The question this poses is how many people have ever read the thing.

That then made me think about how we cut through with the new written word –the blog. Everyone is promoting this as the latest concept in literacy; it provides freedom of speech and a world audience. I think that it is quite influential and versatile as a medium to reach such a vast global potential readership, but does it work?

Whilst many of us read blogs and follow the “twitter users” of this world, how many of us actually find the time or commit the effort to come back to the author with anything?  Twitter users do so by the very nature of the vehicle, but among blog readers, I would suggest relatively few ever add comment. Does that mean we are not engaging our audience, are we not hitting the right note or even more distressing are people just not bothered?

I expect it is a mix of all of the above, and I wonder how that translates into the world of employee engagement and internal communications.  Is the same to be said of that as a medium? I hope not, but I guess the readers of this might well want to feed back to me with some comment!

I still haven’t tweeted yet but when I do, it may help me out of the credit crunch. A canny tool by some Swedish professor based on a secret algorithm (aka Google) measures the dollar value of your tweets. The tweeting of Barack Obama has the highest value at $41,150. Bargain if you ask me! Check out http://tweetvalue.com to work out what your tweet is worth.

I am now an official twitterer… but what do I do?? It seems to me to be a mass texting service. I have people following me and I haven’t even twittered yet!

I feel like my digital footprint is beginning to look like the yetis. I am LinkedIn, I have MySpace – now a long forgotten attic of photos and not so forgotten dates. My Facebook account is beginning to feel pretty creepy these days. Let’s face it, I didn’t like you when I was 15 so why would I now – 17 years later!! It’s the sad trophy hall of virtual safari hunters – stealthily seeking out those distant ‘known onces’ like the colonials sought ivory or tiger’s pelt. Why, when the digital world promised so much, is it making me feel exposed, transparent, needy? And yet it’s still so addictive!

I am coming to the realisation that socially I don’t really like these new media tools – texts and chats with friends is much more fun and intimate. However, I am growing to like more and more the openness and interactivity that working in a socially networked environment gives you. Take LinkedIn as a point – you are able to post questions and start discussions that provide you with interesting data and context for your own line of work. Out with the rolodex and in with a new global contact pool with whom you can share ideas and content.

I also believe that running a closed environment wiki or twitter-like application would prove hugely beneficial for small and large companies – providing a  channel for people to explore ideas, test concepts and generate ideas and communities.

While email may seem passé now (in fact research has shown that the younger generation –tweens – consider email to be a formal communication as we do the letter) even sending out a group email to bounce ideas can be as furtive and creatively rewarding as a physical brainstorm. This worked to great effect this week for Insidedge and a question on Hungarian telecoms…

So, back to twittering…. I know I shouldn’t but I couldn’t help myself, so now what….? Anyone know what you do with it?

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