As I continue my study of how collaboration tools are providing value in the enterprise, I keep coming back to the fact that much of the real value comes from the knowledge the user has about which networks and channels work best for what. Five years ago, you knew that reaching a particular VP was most efficiently accomplished via telephone, reaching a specific sales person worked best via email, and that one Director contact would react only when you could catch her in person. Today, the channels to connect with people have grown tenfold with tools like Skype, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Yammer and many others. While this creates the wonderful ability to maintain and reach a broader network of individuals it also creates a more complex web of networks to negotiate. If not used appropriately, the efficiency gains one might expect from collaborative tools could actually add to your workload vs. making you a more productive and efficient professional.

I have found that the more I Tweet the less I Blog. I'm not the only one as I hear it from other Social Media inspired individuals. Now is this a valid excuse well I'm still not sure. You see I do now find myself trawling the internet more easily for valuable content as my online community has become more honed into my way of thinking so they feed me with all the types of articles I would have taken ages to find a year ago. I also find that my Google Alerts have a brilliant relevance and it musters articles I stand is awe of as they are better written and more publicized than anything I would have done at this point in time. I can then share these easily through my Microsharing/blogging platforms and gain kudos from my community. All my writing concepts tend to now be in Wiki's and proposals and less and less on my Blog. A pity I hear you say.....or maybe not.

 

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The concept of ambient ties fascinates me and it became all apparent this last weekend. My wife and I were invited down the coast to a friend’s seaside cottage for the weekend. Our friend used to work and live in the small coastal town where the cottage is but has since moved to the city. This was her first time back in about 5 months and we shared the experience of returning with her.

I’ll put my social media hat on for a second and then I’ll get back to the weekend story. When my wife and I first moved to the city we live in now eight months ago we knew only a couple of people. I struck up a local Twitter network rather fast as the city of Melbourne I found opened its arms up to me and made me feel right at home both on and offline. After being here for only a month though I needed to go and visit the dentist. I asked my Twitter network if there was someone in my area who they could recommend. @emilyfreeman came to my rescue and let me know her dentist was great and really professional. Turned out she was right and my wife also went there soon afterwards. I had never met Emily before yet I knew some of the people who followed her on Twitter who I trusted.

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I guess you have already grasped that Luke has a higher weighting in the Social Media spectrum with me on the Emotional Intelligence side on the scale. Like many I'm relatively new to Microblogging and I really wanted to put something down about my experience with Twitter. My time online has been an interesting insight into building relationships and I’ve really noticed a difference in my business. Not that anyone believes me!! I have loads of conversations with people who are not yet part of the Twitterverse and they don’t see the point …until I tell draw them of my experiences. Then they visibly sit up, tilt their heads and take notice. I now totally love playing in the big Social Media sandpit and although I am still finding my way, I wanted to share my bucket and spade and hope you get some value from this too.

When I first started to Tweet I probably did the same as everyone else who’s new to this stuff. Jump in the deep end and get busy broadcasting about what I’m up to (what are you doing?). It became a bit of a daily thing on my list of things to do today. Then someone told me that to get maximum benefit I should be tweeting up to 15 times a day. So that became my mission. It then became my downfall. I remember one day logging on to a full morning of email, facebook and Twitter. Then it was after 1pm and I hadn’t done any ‘real’ work and was feeling rather anxious about it all. I wondered how on earth I was going to keep up the momentum and stay sane. So I set myself a few rules. I would give myself time in the morning and evening to check all my emails etc and during the day I would get busy and do what I needed to do. This worked well for me and although I catch myself peeking every now and then I feel much more at peace and calm with what I’m doing. I had a fantastic experience of the power of Twitter fairly recently. As well as being fortunate enough to be working with Luke Grange in the Social Media and Emotional Intelligence space I am also working with a friend and colleague to deliver a Leadership Mastery for Women program. I’m not going to go into the details of that here cos this is not what this blog is about but as part of this program we are interviewing some amazing women who continue to kick butt in their chosen professions. They raise thousands and millions of dollars for charity, they are mothers, wives and yet manage to stay true to their own identity. Anyway through Twitter I was introduced to someone who has done some pretty cool stuff and so I sent her a tweet to ask if she would be interested in being interviewed for our program. She was generous enough to say yes and so we organised the interview and hey presto it’s been completed and is ready to bring to the masses. All done over Twitter! This was the point when I started to get a real FEEL for how relationships are formed, strengthened and extended. I now have been lucky enough to be referred to other amazing women and am following them over Twitter as well. So my community is building and what a community it is. I FEEL so privileged to be part of it. You have probably noticed that I have put the word FEEL in caps. I wanted to highlight this because it really is about bringing emotion into a medium that can be a bit one dimensional – at first. For me, once I’d started to build these relationships it made me realise that just because I can’t see or touch or hear the person on the other side they are still there. And I love this because it makes it more fun! The Internet is becoming more human and its all about conversations.So enjoy the experience. I am!

 I had been waiting in anticipation for the show since I booked it a month ago. Silly pun and unintended there, as the booked show I'm referring to was an event "The future of the Book" held as part of the Melbourne writers festival this week. Straight off the bat I'll let you know that I'm mildly dyslexic and even though I have always had a massive respect for books I'm not the type to plunder my way through a glorious stack of books in a weekend. My mother used to take me by the hand around the library with a basket which she piled high with her weeks reading so it wasn't for lack of being shown the way that I didn't do the same. I am an Audio book person and Audible.com is my friend. Friend in the way it points out what other books I would probably like if I enjoyed the one I just listened to and friend in the way that it takes me to reviews by other people who share my interests. I know you're all probably laughing, yes at me and not with me, thinking you probably have no real friends. We'll get to that in another Blog post when we discuss what a friend really means to us but here's a little insight by Cameron Marlow about Online Social Media and friends in Facebook http://tinyurl.com/aapjq2

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I am forever fascinated by the medium of Online Social Media and the conversations that result because of the way we communicate Online.  I like to sit back and watch what happens over mediums such as Twitter and Facebook.  This may make me sound like a stalker or a perve but as I’m not the most technically minded person (thankfully we don’t have a video player so one less thing to program!) my motivation is simple.  I want to find out if there is a common thread emerging.  And yes, I think there is.

This common thread appears in the language we use.  It is interesting to note that words such as; authenticity, transparency, honesty, trust, genuineness, safety, respect, security, integrity, congruency, all seem to come up when speaking about Social Media. These are Values and I want to have a chat about Values and what that means when communicating Online.

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Great question I found on Discussion Forum which I just had to share with you all 

I began my Twitter account while working for the Local Government Association last December. I wished to connect up with communication professionals across the public and private sectors, and with people in local government, central government and journalism.

My Twitter account - @EdwardWelsh - went well. I have around 365 followers. I was tipped a number of times as one of the people in local government to follow on Twitter. I made some important new contacts. I have begun seeing Twitter as a news feed.

But I am now changing employer and sector. In a fortnight, I start at the Association of Train Operating Companies.

How will my Twitter profile change? Will I keep the followers I have? Will some drift away as I gain new followers? Will I stop following a lot of people? Has anyone any tips about changing jobs and the impact on one Twitter account?

My Reply:

Great question Ed and one I am sure we will all come into contact with over time. The key to all you have put forward here is Identity and Personality. Can I just say off the mark that using your own name as your Twitter name is key to all this as you have branded your profile as you. You will always maintain your personal identity no matter what job you move to.  Everyone who uses Social Media needs a purpose and objective for it to deliver value back to them. I am going to assume your purpose and objective wont change, you still want it to deliver news to you related to your field of work and interest. The news you may want to get though may start to change. You will need to update your BIO with your new position on Twitter to reflect the new direction to gain more relevant news. Actually Ed I just looked and you don't have a BIO in twitter. I tend to Block anyone who doesn't have a Twitter BIO (don't mean to sound harsh) as I don't feel they are sharing their interests or Personality with me so why should I do the same with them - Its social remember.

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I recently came across an interesting tweet where the 'tweeter' had used language that was familiar to them, possibly not realising that the same language could have a different meaning to others in different industries.  Without going into the specifics it was obvious that this caused some language competitiveness and resulted in a barrier to developing relationships on-line. I honestly don't think they were aware of the effect!

Its an old example but still works.  Repeat the following sentence seven time aloud and emphasise the highlighted word:

I never said I would do it.

I never said I would do it.

I never said I would do it.

I never said I would do it.

I never said I would do it.

I never said I would do it.

I never said I would do it.

Seven words, one sentence, seven different meanings!

This is interesting to consider when we think about our language usage in online Social Media and what happens when we create a story about what someone else is thinking.  When we use tools such as Twitter we should realise that our communities are a collection of people with human feeling, needs and aspiration and not a set of football cards (the one with the most wins) and we need to consider the makeup of our audience. The important question being, have you taken the time to get to know them and are you trying to build a relationship.

Ultimately we are never going to know 100% what is going on in someone else's mind.  We can't possibly because we don't know what experiences they've had, values they hold, or beliefs they have that may shape and influence the way they communicate.  A particular type of person with a less developed level of Emotional Intelligence would make up stories that will help keep them in their comfort zone. They do so by blaming other people resulting in them thinking that they know 100% as to what is going on in the other person's mind. We have to develop the skills of Emotional Intelligence in order to take others into account. It must be acknowledged that sometimes people already perceive themselves as demonstrating these skills frequently.  However, it may be that others do not have the same perception and this is where other people will make erroneous assumptions about what they think you are thinking or feeling.  So again, you may rate yourself high in certain skills but, in actual fact, you may not be demonstrating these skills transparently to others.

 

So what we're talking about here really is about blame versus responsibility.  It's about you being responsible for the way you connect with your on-line community.  Next time you Tweet think about how that message may be perceived by others - are you really getting across what you mean? Spend a moment sitting with your audience before sending!

Social Media is nothing we can hide behind. It exposes us in areas we didn't know we even had areas. I wanted to introduce you to what I call the "coffee shop syndrome" of Online Social Media:

Remember those times we skived off from school pretending to be sick so we could have a day off. Remember then how your parents would tell you "well if you're too sick to go to school you're defiantly too sick to go to the shops." You tended to agree only because if someone from school saw you out and about they would wonder why you were not in class. Well the coffee shop syndrome relates to this concept but I just wanted to set the scene offline first.

"The Coffee Shop Syndrome" relates to our level of Emotional Intelligence and how we act upon these skills in the world of Online Social Media. Remember that Emotional Intelligence refers to how often we demonstrate certain behaviours.  It's a set of skills that define how effectively we perceive, understand, reason with and manage our own and others' feelings.  It's all very well believing we demonstrate a high level of EI but if we don't have an outward display of this behaviour then others may have a different opinion!!

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With the use of on-line Social Media on the rise focus continues to move towards effective communication on-line  But what does that mean?

Consider the following:
FIRST COMMUNICATION: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision

SECOND COMMUNICATION: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision

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