Rowan's blog

Engaging and enabling IBM's Brand & Communications teams around the world (CEB Awards)

The 2016 CEB Internal Communications Summit and Awards is on in London at the moment. 

My colleague Nicky Parkinson and I submitted an entry (below) in the 'Innovations in Digital, Social, and Mobile Communications' CEB Award category, for our next-to-no budget work engaging and enabling IBM's Brand & Communications teams around the world. 

We were delighted to have been shortlisted, the competition was tough!

CEB AWARD SUBMISSION - Innovations - IBM - June 2016 from Rowan Hetherington

Social media engagement is not a strategy

I have raved about social media engagement being just one possible method of achieving an objective, for example in my post "Will companies that use social succeed?".

I put social (along with all the other engagement tactics) in it's place within my Integrated Planning System (see slide 7).

Then I stumbled across this rant from Mark Schaefer. It is so good, I feel I must share it:

Social Media Engagement is Not a Strategy from Mark Schaefer

 

Please remember, social media engagement is not a strategy!

Ten years and it's a wrap

I started this blog ten years ago, when internet usage was very different.  Blogs were new. Kazaa was the most searched for term on Yahoo!.  Facebook and Twitter were not yet even twinkles in their founders eyes. 

In the last ten years, I have written 375 posts here -- and received 203 comments and 36,732 page views. 

This blog and its' content has evolved with the times.  Maybe one day it will be historically interesting for that reason!  Today, the way I work is largely social (primarily via IBM Connections) and my posts here have dwindled. I'm only likely to post here occasionally from now on, when I see value in sharing something externally. 

So, for now, I am calling it a wrap. 

 

 

 

IBM on Brand

What is IBM's brand strategy? IBM's Jon Iwata explains it in two minutes:

“IBM on Brand” by Jon Iwata from VSA Partners on Vimeo.

 

I think the logic applies well to 'branding' a career too, i.e. a career is not defined by the various roles you have been in, but by your character - the values, beliefs and skill sets that make you unique.

 

Do marketers need to be strategists?

Marketing is getting increasingly complex.

The marketing funnel is no longer linear, it has changed:

(Source: Forrester)

Typical marketing funnels, like the one shown at the top of this excellent Forrester graphic, were largely based on a groundbreaking article published by American academics Lavidge and Steiner in 1961.

1961 was before my time – but I’m told that in 1961 there were 3 television networks in the US. Clearly a lot has changed in the marketing landscape since then. 

The ‘new funnel’ represented in the lower portion of the graphic shows the impact of peer reviews, competitive alternatives, recommendations from peers and user-generated content.

This is infinitely complex because there are literally thousands of different ways to engage. I don't even think it's accurate to call it a 'funnel' anymore, it's more like a giant subway map - our prospects and clients could enter and exit at multiple different points. This is all due to Web 2.0 and social media having turned the communications landscape on its head in the last ten years. Prospects and clients now source information, make decisions and get influenced in very different ways.

As a result, I believe as marketers, we need to integrate our activities into a consolidated, integrated map that creates a positive user experience along the engagement journey – providing touch points when, where and how our prospects or clients want to engage, i.e. on their terms, not ours.

To do this requires a lot of thought - not just the ability to implement activities, but real insight and strategic planning ability.

Do you think today's marketers are strategic enough?

Skills gap highlighted in the 2012 IBM Tech Trends Report

Continuing the theme of my previous post, you may be interested to learn that only 1 out of 10 organizations have the IT skills needed to harness the benefits of business analytics, mobile computing, cloud computing and social business. This data comes from a new survey from the IBM Center for Applied Insights. Nearly 50 percent of educators and students surveyed indicated major gaps in their institution's ability to teach the right IT skills.

This survey of more than 1,900 technology professionals, academics and students has been alarming to CEOs, CMOs and other C-Suite leaders trying to gain new insights into changing customers demands and buying trends.

 

While IT skills and digital skills are somewhat different, they are becoming increasingly interconnected as marketing becomes more technology focussed. The most significant skills gaps I have encountered while trying to implement the Integrated Planning System are:

1. Social (listening) research. How can organisations engage or respond effectively if they cannot hear the conversation going on?
2. Content. By content, I mean social content and curated content as opposed to paid content, which we know all too well how to create and implement. These first two skills gaps connect to 'social business'.
3. Analytics. This is the same as 'business analytics'. This is different from the metrics - the skill required is analysing the results and creating meaningful insight that can derive new behaviour and future iterations.

 

Does your organisation suffer from similar skills gaps? What have been the most successful methods you have found to address them?

The digital skills gap

One of the big challenges I encounter in my efforts to enable the Integrated Planning System is that existing staff often do not have the skills required to implement the steps.

Even if there was budget for agency resources, many of the tasks involved cannot be effectively delegated to an agency, because that generally adds to the silo effect (as opposed to having one integrated team focussed on the client experience for each constituency segment). This becomes troublesome if:

1. the agency is not an integrated part of the team throughout the process of planning, implementation and iteration, or
2. multiple agencies are competing for budget by recommending engagement tactics that fit into their capability areas (rather than contributing to a neutral planning process based on Steps 1 & 2 of the Integrated Planning System).

 

My experience is that this digital skills gap is pervasive around the world. At IBM, this is something we work to address internally as we have many internal experts. I recently met with Patty Keegan from Digital Chameleon, which helps
companies mainstream digital knowledge & skills across their business. It was interesting and validating to learn that many organisations in Australia are going through the same challenges I have been working to address through the internal Digital Strategy Enablement program at IBM.

Patty was recently interviewed on Sky News about the digital skills gaps in Australia. I thought you may find this interesting.

View on YouTube (incl. full screen option)

What is social listening and why should organisations do it?

In an earlier post I covered detailed findings about enabling social listening research within IBM's marketing and communications practice. Those of you not familiar with social listening may be wondering what all the fuss is about -- why has social listening become a hot topic? 

This short video, from the internal Digital Workshop in Milan last year communicates the value of listening -- and why all modern marketers should all have some basic skill in this area. A few of my followers found this on YouTube and said they found it useful, so I'm sharing it here.

View on YouTube (incl. full screen option)

If your defined constituency segment is active online, I recommend embedding a listening practice as the backbone of the Integrated Planning System. It provides significant value as part of steps 2, 3, 4 and 5.

First, listening can be extremely valuable in defining the constituency segment you want to engage with, as well as gathering Constituent Insights, including information about their shared interests, beliefs, ambitions and behaviours (which may inform the value proposition and content) and which social sites, networks and platforms they use (which will inform decisions regarding which tactics and media to use within the engagement plan).

Listening should also be an ongoing activity throughout the engagement cycle (Step 3) -- for example responding in near real time to potential leads. It would also form part of the measurement system (Step 4) and analytics (Step 5).

I hope this is useful to those of you new to social listening.

The Integrated Planning System

I led the 'Plan' stream at the FUNNEL Sydney event on Monday with a presentation titled, The Integrated Planning System: Five steps to ensure your marketing plan remains effective within the evolving digital environment. 

The Integrated Planning System - Presentation for FUNNEL B2B Marketing event, Sydney 2012 from Rowan Hetherington

I have been working on this system for a couple of years now. We used it in IBM's Digital Strategy Workshops, designed to enable IBM's global marketing and communications practice on digital, which have now reached 1,500 team members. It is also a key part of our corporate digital guidance materials. An earlier iteration of the work is shared in this earlier post.

Many of my posts on this blog touch on elements within this Integrated Planning System, including digital specialty areas and also the overall change management effort involved in adoption of this type of approach within a large, globally integrated enterprise. This topic fascinates me -- I welcome any thoughts, ideas questions or comments. 

 

Speaking at the FUNNEL Sydney event

I was very honoured to speak at the FUNNEL B2B Marketing and Sales event in Sydney on the 19th Nov. It was the first time this event had been run in Australia (it is well known in the UK). 280 delegates attended, from around Australia.

I enjoyed many of the other speakers' presentations and met interesting people - most of whom were there to discuss and learn about the impact of technology; digital, big data and analytics on the profession. 

The tweets flowed and a lot of great points were shared with the hashtag #funnel12. A few quotes that stood out to me from the day:

• "Inbound converts 300% more than outbound at SAP, which is why we're focussed on pull marketing" ~ Ray Kloss, SAP
• "Digital comms are about relevancy, not reach" ~ Benoit Droulez, Traction Digital
• "Begin with the customer experience & work back toward the technology" ~ Quote from Steve Jobs, used in a presentation
• "Stories are 6-7 more times likely to be remembered than traditional corp. messages" ~ Joanne Jacobs, 1000 Heads
• "I wouldn't call it social media - I'd call it digital relationships" ~ Ray Kloss, SAP
• And my favorite...?! "Lightbulb moment listening to @RoHetherington re Constituencies vs Audiences!" ~ Bronwyn Cook

Thanks to @greenhatmktg and @SocialSammy for taking these photos of my presentation:

I will share my presentation in the next post.

Many thanks to Brad Langton and the FUNNEL team for creating an enjoyable and valuable event.

 

Action Research Project: Enabling social listening at IBM

Earlier this year I designed and led a four week Action Research Project. The aim was to gather insight into how sustainable, pervasive social (listening) research could be enabled within IBM's marketing and communications practice.

This project was not about developing specialised, highly trained social listening teams within IBM -- we have those teams in place. This project focused on testing ways to enable social listening to increase the surface area of a function by allowing staff to identify and respond to opportunities themselves.

In July 2012, 16 voluntary participants completed guided action learning cycles. The participants were broadly representative of the marketing and communications function: from 11 disciplines across 10 countries, ranging from senior executives to recent graduates. Data was compiled, analysed and presented to the business in a research report with recommendations.

Listening Action Research Project Report from Rowan Hetherington

I'm interested to hear from anyone else who is conducting similar research.

This project method is being re-run within IBM as an organisational learning system for listening, with results backing up the findings from the initial action research project.

 

Case study: IBM's journey to becoming a social business

MBA, Change management, Communications and IT students around the world are learning about social networking tools and the potential benefits of applying these tools within an organisational context.

Articles on this topic quickly become out of date, due to the speed of progress in this rapidly emerging area.

This case study provides information, current as at September 2012, about IBM's journey to becoming a social business.

Case study: IBM's journey to becoming a social business (September 2012) from Rowan Hetherington

My thanks go to:

• Greg Cartan, Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM), Graduate Certificate in Change Management (GCCM) Course Leader for 'Systems for Change'. Greg invited me to write this, as a way to update the existing AGSM course materials and provided helpful guidance on how to write an academic case study.
• Ethan McCarty, Senior Manager, Digital and Social Strategy at IBM, for content contributions.
• Karen Lilla, Manager, External Relations, Social Business for reviewing.
• Lena Lockhart, a wonderful friend, for lending her proof reading skills.

Oh so quiet

I have been oh so quiet for a while, I know.

Rest assured, this is a temporary state of affairs while I plough through post grad study on top of full time work. This blog is having it's quietest year since 2002. I promise I will be back!

Meanwhile, if you want to know what's been going on in my world, this photo of Paul Adams at Facebook’s Hack Sydney event sums up what feels like the overarching theme... ;)

(Source: http://mikehickinbotham.com)

How have digital interactions improved the way you work?

As part of the work around the digital transformation of IBM, I was asked to record a two minute video, answering two questions:

1. How have digital interactions improved the way you work?

2. How might they be made better?

 

I thought I'd share my answers with you, outside the IBM firewall. I would love to hear answers to the same questions from people in other organisations - feel free to answer the questions yourself as a comment below.

 

1. How have digital interactions improved the way you work?

I couldn’t do my job without the ability to interact digitally. I am part of the IBM corporate digital team but I am located remotely – on the other side of the planet in Sydney, Australia. (IBM's Corporate HQ is located in Armonk, New York.) A colleague made the great point, in a 2 minute video from her kitchen, that digital frees us – we are no longer bound by physical location. To me, this means I can do a job that I love, while living with my Australian husband and our two golden retrievers in Sydney.

A lot of people ask me how I can do a corporate IBM role from here. Well, I can receive emails from Armonk as fast as anyone else!  I can beam up presentations to people’s computer screens all around the world in real time via Smart Cloud meetings (Lotus Live). Our team meetings occur via video, so I get to ‘see’ the team I’m part of.  I don’t get to chat with my team mates around the water cooler, but I do chat with them on Twitter and I comment on their blogs – and that allows me to build rapport and strong working relationships.

So digital gives me freedom in terms of location - but it also gives me more choice. Instead of having to engage with the people in one physical location, I can engage with the people, the content and the ideas that interest me from anywhere in the world.

I can pick a subject – identify the keywords and find active groups of people – or constituencies - who are talking online about that topic. I think this has huge implications for how we learn, influence and collaborate.

2. How might digital interactions be made better?

While there is value in improving the technologies that allow us to interact digitally, I believe there are huge potential gains from using existing technologies better. We could put a lot more rigour into how we use digital to interact internally and externally, through better integrated planning. I could talk on that for hours, but my time is up.

 

Thank you for listening!

The need for insight into digital landscapes

I just read an article titled "Why Apple Needs Reminding We Don’t All Live In The United States", about the recent iPad WiFi+4G issues. Basically, Australians (among many others) have decided that Apple calling the new iPad ’4G’ is inaccurate, considering 4G LTE technology either doesn’t exist yet locally, or is not compatible with the iPad’s chosen LTE bands.

Either Apple did not have insight into the digital landscape of the markets it launched the iPad 4G into, or they chose to call it 4G anyway (which also demonstrates a lack of insight - into their digital consumers in those markets). Customers are none too happy to find, after they paid for the new device, that they don't get faster speeds. They are now causing a digital uproar which has extended to traditional media.

The article suggests that this is an issue that relates to Apple being a 'huge company' and 'being less agile'. I disagree. An organisation of any size can use a rigourous planning process, including gathering insight into all relevant local markets. It seems clear that basing plans on local insight would improve the user experience and perceived local relevance. So why do so few multinationals consider the local digital landscape of each relevant market?

I would have thought Apple, with its focus on user experience would have been at the leading edge of this practice.

'Engaging' requires building rapport

I just read this tweet from @SarahRobinson:

I'll laugh with you, Sarah. By the way I agree -- and I think this also relates to the concept of building rapport.

I see a lot of people simply promoting their stuff via social (rather like shouting into a crowded room and then running away). It's easy for people with a short term objective to use social as yet another media channel through which they can PUSH messages out to the ether. But will anyone get a full return on their investment in social if they only generate IMPRESSIONS? I don't think so.

To me, the true concept of 'social' necessitates people at the other end of the communication understanding and caring about the information being shared.  If they don't feel some sense of RAPPORT with the sender, they're less likely to bother to ENGAGE at the receiving end. 

I believe 'engaging' successfully requires building rapport -- and I think this part is often overlooked.

Building rapport involves listening, taking time to understand, relate and respond to other's ideas as well as sharing your own ideas, experiences and stories -- as a way to develop mutual understanding and the co-creation of value. Building rapport is central to the concept of 'building constituency' (see my post and short deck on how do that here).

You can probably tell that this is one of my current bugbears! Does anyone else relate?

The Integrated Digital Plan

I have been noodling with Integrated Digital Planning approaches for around three years. I lead the digital planning effort for IBM Marketing and Communications globally which involves the ongoing creation and cross-functional coordination of methods, development of guidance and learning materials with stakeholders incl. discipline planning and skills leaders and the Talent and Learning organization.

The latest iteration of the 'Integrated Digital Plan' chart:

(View full size on SlideShare)

Some explanatory points:

• Listening, content, media selection, metrics and analytics are core pillars of digital marketing and communications.
• Other pillars listed (social engagement through to virtual events) to be selected as part of the Engagement Plan based on relevance to the Objectives, selected Constituents and their local digital usage behaviour (Insights). This list is not exhaustive, for example you could run a Digital Jam or use Collaborative Software. Technologies will emerge over time that facilitate engagement in new ways.
• Frequency of iterations to be decided (loop in orange along the base of chart). The more frequent the iterations, the faster the plan will become optimized.
• The Engagement Plan is required in order to define the Management Plan – and vice versa. Think of them as two sides of a coin.
• If resources are sufficient, more than one Business Priority (Input) could be addressed at one time.

 

First, thank you to George Gallate (Global Chairman Euro RSCG 4D) for tweaking my pencil drawing, turning it into the pretty colored chart shown above and creating a full sized billboard (for use at the Digital Strategy Workshops):

Second, I'd like input on this approach. Is anyone else out there attempting to operationalize this kind of planning process within a large enterprise / organization? If so, I'd love to hear from you.

IBMers can access the latest version of the Integrated Digital Plan here.

Many of my recent posts relate to this approach, including:

• a conversation with Tony Zambito
• my post on Building Constituency: A communications approach for open leaders which overlays the Constituents, Listening, Engagement Plan, Measurement, Analytics and Iteration portions of the Integrated Digital Plan, but through the lens of building relationship (rapport) and co-creating value with Constituents.

Other posts describe the business transformation challenges involved in implementing this kind of approach including my latest ramble, on the parallels between:

• the internal transformation organizations must go through to keep pace with the external technology revolution we are all experiencing with digital/social communications and
• the outstanding strategic change plan Major James Gant outlined in 'One Tribe at a Time'.

I'm sure my thoughts on this topic will continue to evolve, as the transformation within IBM gathers further momentum and results - and as I learn more from others.

Input welcome via the comments section below.

 

One Tribe at a Time

It is Remembrance Day. In line with my interests in change management and building constituency, I read "One Tribe at a Time: A strategy for success in Afghanistan" by Major Jim Gant. My understanding of the War in Afghanistan in 2009 when this was written is very basic... but based on the information presented, this is the most compelling strategic change plan I have read.

The scale and complexity of the challenges, along with the brutal realities of failure in a war environment, put the digital/social change project I spend time thinking about into perspective! The external technology revolution we are all experiencing with digital/social communications - and the internal transformation organizations must go through to keep pace (the subject of many of my posts) - now feels like a walk in the park on a warm spring day with an ice cream. Having said this, I do see parallels.

My take on it:

• The vision is; To disrupt, dismantle and defeat the terrorist network, al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. To prevent the return of al-Qaeda in either country in the future and to facilitate security and prosperity for the Afghan people.

• A key cultural factor is the fundamentally different structures of America and Afghanistan: a central governance model vs a distributed tribal system.

• Major Jim Gant's strategy involves working with Pashtunwali tribes; one 'Tribal Engagement Team' building constituency with one tribe, eventually scaling to reinforce existing tribal structures right across the country, to partner with them against al-Qaeda. This makes sense because the Pashtunwali tribal system is centuries old - it's all they know - and they are likely to resist foreign intervention (like attempted structural change) to the death.

Implementing the proposed strategy would require institutional change and a shift in leadership style:

• Approval to pilot the strategy would require imagination and trust from leadership.
• Aligning with this approach at full scale would require transformation of the US Army, including a significant paradigm shift.
• Communications would need to be overhauled from command and control to, perhaps, Social Architecture, slide 6.
• Approvals processes would need to change - some efforts would need to go ahead with no approval.
• 'Trust and approval' would need to be agreed upfront (sounds a little like having Social Computing Guidelines, e.g. my employer IBM's).
• The risk-averse nature of staff would need to change - they'd need to be willing to 'get out there', partner and collaborate with the tribe/constituency to co-create value.
• Staff must be allowed to go 'native' and interact with external tribes at all levels (can staff in your organization openly collaborate with people externally about their non-confidential work e.g. on a blog, LinkedIn Group or via Twitter).
• Funding models must be streamlined, so staff have the power to do what makes sense (to draw a parallel with digital marketing and communications, this might be investing in new listening capabilities, developing locally relevant content for a key constituency in market and funding ongoing metrics and analytics to derive actionable insights). 
• Likely resistance from US ground commanders (I think all change agents can relate to that one).

Major Gant listed this familiar sounding challenge: "Identifying, attracting and training personnel who could perform this type of mission would be a daunting task". This seems to come back to the need for a new (or, perhaps, old) predominant style of intrinsically motivated, transformational leadership:

• More parallels here: Finding leaders with integrity, 'Strength and Honor' who can 'build constituency': incl. building rapport across cultures / cross-function, listen, empathise, understand, learn, then 'influence without authority', plus continually assess the status against the vision and successfully iterate on the strategy and implementation over time.
• Initial leaders would need the imagination to go against the grain of what the institution rewards, be willing to pilot it (start small and think big).
• Importantly they'd need the commitment/perseverance to stick with it, to allow the project to benefit from the 'Chinese bamboo tree' style phenomenon described on p37 (little growth in first years, explosive growth / return in five years). They might need to influence up too, to ensure their project was provided ongoing support.

 

Major Jim Gant, you say you're not a writer, not a strategist, not an academic - but I found this very thought provoking from the perspective of strategy and change (and applied cultural anthropology). Plus I was compelled to read to the end. I hope others do too.

I'd love to hear what has happened since 2009 - and what was learned along the way. I vaguely recall hearing from David Meerman Scott that the US Army is transforming in line with the digital/social communications revolution, perhaps along the lines of parallels drawn above? I wonder if this might have helped.

 

Interested to hear others thoughts too.

 

P.S. Tip of the hat to Luc Galoppin (as he would say) for telling me about the ebook.

11.11am on 11th of the 11th, 2011

This minute comes once every 100 years. I'm going to take this minute to remember the conflicts of the past and pledge to do what I can to contribute to a more peaceful future.

Will you join me?

Source: timeanddate.com

 

 

Agile Progress - an experiment in driving open, collaborative, sustainable progress

The seven billionth human will be born today. This population level is currently unsustainable. Whose responsibility is it to regulate human population numbers - and solve other problems facing humanity and our planet? Is it the responsibility of governments? Of organisations? Of individuals?

Population is a complex topic that relates to individual choice, education, standard of living and other factors. Aren't all the big areas we humans want to see progess in* the collective responsibility of all of us; individuals, organisations and governments?

*E.g. the topics from the Worldometer statistics page: Population, Government & economics, Society & media, Environment, Food, Water, Energy, Health.

Today, individuals from around the world can collaborate with each other - and with organisations and governments - to solve our greatest challenges and drive ethical, sustainable progress. We have the technologies: Web 2.0 has provided power to the people.

What if we each participated and followed a process like this:

1. Each participant signs up to participate voluntarily (for this experiment, via the form below). Each participant selects a topic they are knowledgeable about and willing to contribute towards.
2. Secure an overall Program Leader leader for each topic, plus Project Leaders to neutrally facilitate collaboration and project management on specific project efforts (not implement activities).
3. Project Leader to gather a team of voluntary participants (enlist more participants where required, communicate the overview and process).
4. Each Project Leader to work with the participants that volunteered to collaboratively develop wording an ethical, sustainable vision for the future of that topic. This would become their Project vision. (Note: Multiple topic>visions would require multiple Project Leaders - many different projects may form under one topic, each with their own vision.)
5. Each Project Leader coordinates wording, with participants, of a SMART* short term goal (outcome) to work towards - in line with the collectively defined project vision. This could take the form of a ‘user story’, a step used in agile development process. View Agile Alliance video, ‘Agile in a nutshell’.
6. Each project team that defined a vision and an outcome collectively participates, with whatever resources and influence the leader, participating individuals, organisations and / or governments can muster, to work towards implementation of this outcome, coordinating efforts using collaborative software. Together their efforts form an Agile Progress project.
7. The project team reviews their progress against the SMART* short term outcome developed in step 5. Team leader notes and communicates learnings.
8. Wrap back to step 5. Iterate over time for continuous improvement in progress toward vision developed in step 4.

*SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound

By working together in project teams, each contributing our individual actions, skills and resources to the collective effort and mobilizing other individuals, organisations and governments, perhaps we could drive open, collaborative, sustainable progress in these important areas.

I’m keen to set up the functionality to enable the creation of Agile Progress projects, as an experiment, then involve more people. We can iterate over time, based on feedback and measurable outcomes (optimise the concept and individual project efforts based on what works / what doesn’t work / the trial of new ideas). I’d like your input and participation. If you’re reading this, you qualify!

To set this up, I’d like your feedback on:

1. The ‘Agile Progress’ concept. Please view and edit this simple first draft of the concept incl.: Who, What, Where, How on Google Docs. 
2. What topics you feel most knowledgeable / passionate about (in form below). This will provide important information to help determine where to start.
3. Which free, scalable collaboration tool(s) would best meet the requirements listed on Google Docs? (I use some of these tools, but don't have visibility across all options.)
4. What challenges do you foresee - and what solutions might overcome them?

Please provide your feedback on items 2, 3 and 4 via the short form below:

Name:

Email:

Topic of interest:
Human population
Government & economics
Society & media
Environment
Food
Water
Energy
Health
Recommended tool(s):

Challenges & solutions:

 

This idea is in early concept phase. It excites me, because if it can be made to work, perhaps we (individuals, organisations and governments) could define shared visions and work towards open, collaborative, sustainable progress together. I’d appreciate your feedback – via the form fields above or by leaving a comment below. My next steps will be guided by your input.

I am seeking others to collaborate with to develop/modify the concept.

 

The Power of Open: 2.0 Public, Private and Community Sectors

In September, the Open Government Partnership formally launched with a series of high-level meetings highlighting the transformative nature of open governance.
 
Events included a day-long multi-stakeholder discussion, "The Power of Open," that brought together governments, civil society, industry leaders, academics and the media in a series of panels and networking events. The launch page states, these were “focused on the role of openness in improving responsiveness, fostering accountability, creating efficiencies, promoting innovation and growth, fighting corruption, improving performance, and capturing dispersed knowledge in support of smarter policies.”

As part of this, Eight nations (Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the US) formally endorsed a broadly-worded Open Government Declaration, all of them openly asserting that their goal is to achieve “greater prosperity, well-being, and human dignity in our own countries and in an increasingly interconnected world.”

This is something I feel incredibly hopeful about - I see increased 'Openness' in the public, private and community sectors as a huge step towards ethical, sustainable, agile progress. Last year I had a (somewhat radical) rant on the need (and possibilities) for crowd-sourced democracy here.

Watch President Obama’s opening address from the meeting, along with comments from multiple countries:


Highlights:

• The UK has ambition to be the most transparent government in the world. Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, gave an extremely articulate speech and call to action (at 46:59).
• Rakesh Rajani, one of the civil society representatives used his moment well.
• President Obama's closing remarks included a pertinent comment on the challenge of being a human being in a position of power.

Read Susan Crawford’s detailed blog post on the topic, including how you can get involved in the US: http://scrawford.net/blog/

In the private sector:

• The power of the consumer is well known and is being leveraged in the marketing space ('Customer-made' became a trend back in 2006).
• In the B2B space, collaboration between internal and external experts, prospects and clients is becoming commonplace too.
• In large organisations, 'jams' are providing opportunity for internal crowdsourcing, for example, IBM's ValuesJam in 2003 gave its workforce the opportunity to redefine the core IBM values for the first time in nearly 100 years.
• These initiatives have generally been led from the top.

The community sector now has the power to lead and drive big change from the bottom up:

• Nathan Winograd made San Fransico the first 'no kill' state for shelter animals in the United States and went on to make the same change in other places (see 01.45 in video).
• A different example of community leadership is the collaborative, bottom up, coordinated research effort of the distributed http://occupyresearch.net project. Anyone can participate. A team led development of the wiki, which describes itself as "an open, shared space for distributed research focused around OccupyWallStreet / OccupyTogether". They are sharing ideas, research methods, tools, datasets, with a view to writing, analysing, discussing, codesigning new tools, and otherwise developing theory and practice together.

 

So, becoming more open (and finding ways for people from all sectors to collaborate on shared interests, beliefs, ambitions) is perhaps inevitable, since everyone now has a voice and anyone can drive change.

I see two keys to smooth progress in this area - the exact two challenges mentioned in my previous post; imagination and leadership. Scalable technologies have emerged that permit collaboration top down and bottom up. The question is, can a leader find constituents including experts who share interests, beliefs or ambitions - and lead them to;

• define a shared vision that represents ethical, sustainable progress (a 'win' for all constituents)
• and then work towards it in a coordinated way?

The project leader and participants would need imagination and leadership (internal and external) to commit to the possibility of a shared vision and to willingly, consistently collaborate and coordinate with each other over time to achieve win/win progress.

If you’re interested in hearing what OpenGov experts and enthusiasts have to say, feel free to follow this OpenGov Twitter list.

Lets hope the power of 'open' culminates in constituents with expertise collaborating to drive ethical, sustainable progress more transparently and democratically in all sectors.

Building Constituency: A communications approach for open leaders

Mary Murphy, reporting from the recent THINK Forum in NYC, wrote:

“We’re living in a time where our need for strong leadership is intensifying and the leadership qualities we need are changing.”

In her blog post titled "We Need a New Leadership Approach to Make the Planet Smarter", she goes on to say:

“We’ve arrived at a juncture where the only barriers to building a smarter planet are imagination and leadership. We have to develop future leaders who have the vision necessary to make progress and the skills to lead companies and communities to that better place.”

“Observing Leadership Series client protagonists this year has helped us pinpoint three attributes that they share. They’re all systems thinkers who can look across complex and interconnected systems and see their way to a solution. All are able to build a constituency despite resistance to change and conflicting interests. And they all have the ability to cultivate an information-led culture to help solve what sometimes seem like insurmountable challenges."

 

Perhaps we need a system to cultivate this information-led culture to build constituencies: How about a 2.0 communications approach for open leaders to drive truly collaborative progress?

In the spirit of collaborative progress, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this...

Building constituency: a communications approach for open leaders

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Marketing 2.0: How to transform an organization from inside-out to outside-in

Today I read an excellent and thought provoking post from Tony Zambito titled: "Is it reach and engage or listen and engage?".

The post raises questions regarding the ideal approach in this marketing 2.0 world - and the transformation challenge organizations face in order to implement outside-in approaches.

I agree with Tony that marketing 2.0 approaches require listening to come first.

However I think it's simplistic to talk about listen, engage and reach in isolation. Also, I don't believe this is only about social. 

Here's my take on the elements required (I'd appreciate any feedback on this):

In my humble opinion, whole 360 degree integrated plans need to be designed from the outside-in, based on insight into the target audience. Rather than using the word 'target' which suggests hunting to 'reach' them.. Or 'audience' which suggests they're passive, I'll call them a constituency - a group of people with shared interests, beliefs or ambitions that the organization wants to serve and create value exchange with. (In order to create any plan there would probably need to be a clear objective  & outcomes set too).

By starting with a specific constituency (group of customers /prospects /clients) in mind - and LISTENING to them, relevant content and communication vehicles could be selected to form part of an integrated plan. This would, as Tony articulated, involve embracing the constituency in terms of collaborating two-way - and ENGAGING in relevant ways (incl. internal experts connecting with experts/influencers in the constituency 'peer-to-peer', ensuring web pages and assets on paid/owned/earned domains show up in natural search results, with clear, relevant calls to action, as well as more traditional one-to-many marketing communications integrated across organizational silos). 

Re. REACH: ideally, by listening first, the content developed would be so highly relevant and valuable that members of the constituency are energized to share the messages / content / agenda on the organisation's behalf. (This would create free 'REACH' from peers, who are likely to be more trusted sources than marketing messages). This wouldn't necessarily replace traditional push tactics, but could augment.

Lastly, I see iteration of plans in short test & learn cycles playing an important role in the ideal plan, allowing fast optimization and (per Tony Zambito's earlier post) the ability to keep the messages / content / agenda aligned with the interests, shared beliefs, ambitions and digital usage patterns of the defined constituency over time.

Does this map to your thinking or would you change the approach?

A question: What I spend a lot of time thinking about is HOW might employees encourage an organization to develop the appetite for this large scale transformation effort? What would motivate an org. with multiple silos and different planning approaches (incl. many 'inside-out' ones) to self-analyse and redesign the org. to make constituent-focused outside-in approaches possible? 

Keen to hear any thoughts on this!

Mexico, Milan, Madrid

At work, I'm part of a team driving the effort to increase, optimize and integrate the use of digital in marketing & communications plans across IBM globally. This is a pretty challenging transformation effort, requiring large scale changes to enable constituent-focussed integrated planning (moving from inside-out marketing and communications to an outside-in approach).

As part of this effort, we run Digital Strategy Workshops. My Manager @EthanMcc, Vice President @benedw, colleague from another part of the business @DMBeckmann plus our global agency partners from Euro RSCG 4D @gallate and Ogilvy @howardpyle, and I, are continuing to get out to more IBM markets this year.

Workshops in Mexico, Milan and Madrid

In the last two weeks we ran workshops in Mexico, Milan and Madrid.

It was wonderful to meet the local teams, including local Digital Leaders I've been working with for some time. It was good to better understand their business priorities, local gaps/opportunities and market landscapes. We worked with these local teams to improve IBM's capabilities in digital, drive deeper integration between internal functions around digital and, ultimately, to identify ways to meet their growth objectives by developing integrated marketing and communications plans with digital at the core - the next steps for their markets in this transformation effort.

Many thanks to Leobardo V Mendez in Mexico, Paolo Carnevale and Loredana Galante in Italy, plus Luis De SopeÑA Pastor and Particia Jimenez in Spain for all your hard work to make these workshops possible. It was wonderful to meet you finally!

I'm not sure what I would have done without the tremendous support of my colleague Denise Beckmann who looked after me when I got sick with laryngitis (when I arrived in Mexico City). I couldn't stand for more than 30 seconds and had lost my voice (not that I could speak Spanish anyway)! Also, big thanks to staff at Sheraton Suites Santa Fe, Mexico who, on request from Denise managed to get a friendly and professional Mexican doctor to my hotel room within 40 minutes and were very kind and helpful.

Photos from the workshops are up on Flickr. Some of my favorites are below.

Mexico:

 

Milan:

Madrid:

 

‘The Hero’s Journey’ – implications for leading change

I was reflecting yesterday on the roles change agents play within the 'hero's journey' and the implications of the hero’s journey for leading change (note I am using the term 'hero' to refer to both males and females).

First, let me define those two things:

Change agents are people who attempt to positively influence change through his or her actions, or influencing the actions of others (i.e. most of us in our day to day lives, plus leaders of organisational change).

The hero's journey is a basic pattern found in many narratives from around the world.

Joseph Campbell describes it quite wonderously: "A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

This chart shows the hero's journey of change (graphic in public domain):

I've taken a few writing courses, during which I learned that the backbone of a typical fiction includes;

• Identifying a gap (usually something that is shut down or out of balance within the main character), then
• Going through the adventure of the hero's journey to overcome blocks to transformation. The character’s inner journey is usually facilitated by an outer journey - which contains multiple change agents - some genuinely trying to steer them towards this transformation, others providing an environment they can change within (incl. providing the challenges / resistance they need to overcome, to make their inner journey meaningful). The hero is also a change agent on the personal level in that they make the choice to change within the environmental/situational context (and, since the outer journey reflects the inner journey, they transform their environment/situation in the process).

 

What roles do change agents play within the 'hero's journey'?

Looking at the hero's journey chart above, I'd argue that every phase could be played by change agents:

• providing a call to adventure i.e. articulating a vision - step 3 of Kotter's 8 steps to change management
• being the 'supernatural aid' i.e. communicating the Vision for Buy-in / helping them see and feel the vision and reason for change - step 4 of Kotter's 8 steps to change management
• providing the threshold i.e. urgency & felt need for change - step 1 of Kotter's 8 steps to change management)
• being the helper i.e. effective follower - as defined by Kelley
• being the mentor i.e. coaching leader - as defined by Goleman
• providing challenges i.e. opportunities for the hero to learn experientially incl.: overcoming resistance, undertaking training, inviting them to step up to achieve a goal / attain something of value
• facilitating the hero through seeing the revelation i.e. the emotive 'clunk' of understanding about what needs to change and being able to let go of the old & embrace the new - this could involve influence tactics such as rational persuasion, inspirational appeals, consultation (Yukl), creating interventions (Bandura, 1997 in the context of developing self-efficacy) / facilitating experiential learning workshops, incl. processes to support consolidation of learnings
• supporting the return to a new status quo i.e. consolidating gains and making change stick - step 8 of Kotter's 8 steps to change management

 

What are the implications of ‘The Hero’s Journey’ for leading change?

Isn't this the most intuitive approach for understanding change management?

Based on its pattern throughout global narrative history, ‘The Hero’s Journey’ is arguably the intuitive, natural approach to change that moves people. However, it does not match the approaches espoused by change theorists, such as Kotter’s 8 steps (1996), Kanter, Stein and Jick’s 10 commandments (1995) or Nadler and Nadler’s (1998) recipe for organisational change. The key differences:

1. When you consider that every human being has a life story and is in the process of learning (i.e. life), it becomes clear that every person is within their own hero’s journey (i.e. everyone is running their own change agenda).
2. Heroes / personal change agents must become aware of their own personal biases (personality type, perceptions, beliefs, cultural norms, values, motivations etc) to ensure they do not make incorrect assumptions / have blind spots or biases in relation to their change efforts, in order to be effective. Every hero’s journey / change effort will involve peeling back new levels of awareness - and adjustments will need to be made on an ongoing basis, to take account of new information.
3. Where a human being is interconnected with other humans in any way, there are multiple change agents / heroes, each working on their own journeys (change agendas). In other words, everyone is trying to implement change, but their 'change' is probably different to the one you are trying to lead and implement. In order to get the people you are trying to influence to buy in to your hero's journey / change agenda, you must find a way to align their agenda with yours, or yours with theirs. In other words, find out what motivates them - and what shared interests, beliefs or ambitions you could align on. If they are ‘shut down’, then it becomes necessary to re-establish their belief in themselves and the value of contributing to the world around them (not just their self-efficacy for a task).
4. In a work of fiction, as in general life, a lot of change is serendipitous - each 'hero' (i.e. every character) is finding their way on their own journey as well as playing a part in the story of each other character. The change agents are each embroiled in their own hero's journey as well as in each others journeys. We each pick ideas for the next 'scene' in our change journey from the smorgasboard of stories around us.

 

In summary, the existing models of change don't address the concept that everyone is a change agent on their own journey. The existing models are linear, based on a the premise of a static external environment, whereas in real life (as in the hero's journey), the change journey is unknown at the start. It can't be known at the start, because the process involves deriving more awareness (incl. eliminating personal biases) - and playing the roles of helper, mentor, transformer and consolidator in other people's journeys, whose life scenes form the external environment we are attempting to change!

I need some more time to reflect on this – meanwhile, I’d love to hear any comments.