I’d also like to take a moment to point to a resonant value here, the importance of the human factor in technology. As I was telling a technology entrepreneur I was talking to today, technology is like a taxi cab. You need a smart driver and a passenger for the cab to have a true purpose. Otherwise, it’s a shiny gadget that goes nowhere fast, or a gas-waster driving around looking for something useful to do.

There are no shortcuts. You pay what you get for.

Many managers become leaders by being good at something, let’s say building a widget, and by patiently persisting in their competence, eventually get promoted to manager. This was my path as well. I was a successful newspaper artist and designer, and was eventually rewarded with a management position as an art director. I’ve noticed though, that so many managers don’t ever get to have the epiphany that I did: Once promoted, the job is no longer about widgets, it’s about leading the people who make the widgets. This is a huge leap for many, evidently.

I had this epiphany within a year or so of beginning to manage cranky creative people. I’m fortunate that I found a certain detachment, that I was able to observe my own behavior without much ego, see what was effective and what wasn’t, and to adjust accordingly. I knew I wasn’t perfect, and was always ready to learn. I was also “blessed” with an extremely difficult boss, and learned a lot about what not to do. I came to understand that it was important to actually care about the people who were sweating out 8 hours a day in creative labor. Getting the most out of creative people rather requires that they care about you as well, and are willing to bring their A game. I did well with this knowledge, and in time earned the affection of my staff and many colleagues who did business with the Art Department.

In 2000, I moved online and started over, designing Web sites. In this context, although I did get to manage students and temporary hires, leadership was mostly about invention, strategy and execution for me. Doing what needed doing, whether asked or not. As I got more and more involved in providing technical support for Web sites and training for site operators, customers became a bigger part of the leadership equation for me. Caring about people was still crucial, but from a different direction. Eventually, I became the manager of a small team providing Web support and training.

Success in my first years online created a bit of a challenge in the new role, as more and more people wanted a piece of the Web pie. Partly this was because of growing awareness of the importance of the most essential communications medium of our time, but also because our team delivered an excellent product at no cost to the customer clients at the school. To answer the challenge, I began looking around at how other support organizations were managing their own growth challenges.

Mimi Pham and Tony Hsieh let me take their 3D picture at Stanford after Tony's talk on Delivering Happines

I happened to find a talk by Tony Hsieh of Zappos.com that he gave at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. I have since heard Tony speak in person. His talk about building a culture of customer service was inspiring and influential. I immediately recognized the truth of his thesis: That culture is the essential element of work, that how customers feel about their customer experience is the most important factor, and that it takes happy employees to make customers truly happy.

Tony’s excellent book, Delivering Happiness, pointed me to another book called Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization. The result of more than ten years of scientific social research involving over 24,000 people, the authors discovered and documented 5 evolutionary stages of behavior in “tribes,” groups of 20-150 people, the effective maximum for functional social groups. They found that organizations evolve through 5 known stages, each building on the one before, and reflected in the language of their tribes:

• Stage 1: Life sucks
• Stage 2: MY life sucks
• Stage 3: I’m great
  (and you’re not)
• Stage 4: We’re great
• Stage 5: Life is great

I quickly recognized that, like half of all organizations, my tribe was firmly rooted in Stage 3. And I thought I was Stage 4, if not 5. Even so, I thought it would be good for me to take training in Tribal Leadership, so I signed up for Tribal Leadership Intensive 1 and 2, a weekly tele-course over 12 weeks.

Having completed this training, I now know that, although I’m now firmly on the path to being a stable Stage 4 leader, I’m still a recovering Stage 3. I have good instincts for connecting people, now have a tool kit for developing successful strategies and relationships, and I understand that as long as it’s all about “me” and not about “we,” it’s Stage 3.

I know that noticing is more than half the battle. I can see my path more clearly now, and have begun my personal transformation. I am on the leadership road, and I expect the journey to take a lifetime.

10:05am Tuesday, 03/29/2011
SEO WebsIte Clinic: Do your Websites Test Positive for SEO?

11:10am Tuesday, 03/29/2011
The 2011 Startup Scene Uncovered

10:05am Wednesday, 03/30/2011
Speed = Dollars: How to Massively Scale WordPress

11:10am Wednesday, 03/30/2011
Combining Research Methods to Optimize User Experience Design

4:05pm Wednesday, 03/30/2011
What to Invest In and What to Build

4:15pm Wednesday, 03/30/2011
Creating Infectious Action

4:25pm Wednesday, 03/30/2011
A Conversation with Reid Hoffman

4:40pm Wednesday, 03/30/2011
Osama Bedier

4:50pm Wednesday, 03/30/2011
Collaboration is Evolving

5:20pm Wednesday, 03/30/2011
The Hidden Secrets of Social Media and Viral Advertising

9:05am Thursday, 03/31/2011
Venturing Beyond the App Store

9:15am Thursday, 03/31/2011
Future of eCommerce

9:35am Thursday, 03/31/2011
Adam Goldstein

9:45am Thursday, 03/31/2011
Adam Mosseri

10:00am Thursday, 03/31/2011
Tablet Success

10:25am Thursday, 03/31/2011
Know Your Meme

New users can get a free HydroMassage. This is where you lay fully clothed on a table as jets of water course back and forth on your back through a rubber sheet. It’s a little weird, sounds a bit like a washing machine, but really is a nice massage, the best mechanical massage I’ve ever gotten. And you can’t beat free. See the McGinnis Chiropractor HydroMassage page for details and a coupon.

About WordPress

This is one of several new sites I’ve set up with WordPress, which totally rocks! It’s really easy to work with if you have any experience with Web development. No Dreamweaver or even HTML required, although it’s helpful to know some HTML and CSS if you want to modify the theme. There are literally thousands of free themes to choose from, and more you can pay for, for really professional sites. I’ll do a more detailed post on this topic in the near future.

As for the setup, I’ve created WordPress installations on several hosts in the past few weeks, and while all the hosts seem to be offering WordPress now (it’s open source, so you can see why), not all of the hosts are as easy to work with as the others. The host for my own sites, iPage, has been pretty good.

Sites for job-seekers

Currently, I have two individual professional sites at Online Art Director and Expert Web Producer. These are examples of how The Web Shaman can set up job-seeking sites for professionals. There’s really no excuse not to have your own Web site nowadays, especially if your work touches on the Internet in any way, or if you are involved in communications, marketing, advertising, sales, anything that has to do with working with the public. And with WordPress, it’s really very, very easy to do and look good.

Creative jobs

If you know anyone looking for a creative team leader, such as a Creative Director, Web Design Director, Art Director, or similar creative position, send them to Online Art Director.

Production jobs

If you know anyone looking for an producer, please send them to Expert Web Producer.

Contact me

Or tip me off at with a link to the job.

You could also drop me a line if you want The Web Shaman to help you set up your own job-seeker site. The first chat is free.

I’ll update this blog occasionally, as I work with various hosts, so come back now and again.

I’m involved in a project related to social networking and collaboration that would compete with LinkedIn and a number of similar competitor sites around connecting people with skills. It’s been an intense week of ideas and wireframes, and it’s a self-referential business, in that the team is creating a startup that’s all about helping startups.

That’s about all I can say about the project at this time, but my main reason for writing is to share a couple of great phrases I heard at the first Friday session, where the people with ideas pitched them, followed by a “beauty contest” to narrow the list, then encourage team formation and the process of lean startup.

A fellow named Dino, was talking about how he uses Facebook and other social media, and said that he spent a lot of time asking and answering questions. At one point he said, “Be the guy asking questions, and eventually you’ll be seen as the guy with the answers.” Brilliant.

Another entrepreneur named Francis was talking about customer service in relation to delivering farmers market products to major business locations, and he used the phrase “service as a software,” reversing the SaS idea, connecting with the idea that, with or without technology, it’s the human connection that ultimately matters in business, and in software.

Let me pose to you the questions I asked my colleagues:

• If your boss friended you on Facebook, would you accept or ignore it?
• How about those who report to you? A peer colleague?
• Let’s say you are in the midst of a merger negotiation, with the aim of selling your company to another, and millions of dollars are on the line. Your counterpart friends you. Do you accept or ignore?

Before addressing these questions, an admission: I was once like those who answer no. Until recently, I felt that there needed to be separation between my personal social network and the professional one. Facebook was for “real” friends and family, and LinkedIn for co-workers and other colleagues. I was wrong. Here’s why.

In life, all things are connected. Our attempts to put them in neat, tidy boxes are just doomed to failure. What happens inside my personal network reverberates to the entire world through the principle of connectedness. And this is actually to my benefit, and the benefit of everyone on the planet.

Fear is neither a productive emotion, nor a profitable one. Social media is here to stay people. I’m not arguing for conformity, although this is a real pressure now, and growing. Rather, it’s important to notice your reality and do your best to understand it without fear, what it means to you, what it means to your tribe, what it means to the planet. I’m pointing to simple sophistication about your life and technology. Understand it and master it.

Asian cultures are actually a bit ahead of us on social sophistication in business, because the focus is on the “we” over the “me.” In China, it’s called Guan Xi (connections/relationships), in Japan Omoiyari (empathy/loyalty). Westerners in Asia have learned, sometimes painfully, that one can’t charge in, make a deal and disappear with the profits. In the West and especially with men, our culture of cowboy individualism puts the emphasis on the deal, how it’s negotiated, finalized and written down. If you screw me, well my lawyer will talk to your lawyer. In Asia, I’ve got to get to know you and trust you before I’m going to do any significant business with you, especially where there might be any risk to me and my tribe.

This may be related to cultural maturity.  The American model has only been around a hundred years or so. Young people (again, especially males) tend to focus on their individual achievements and ambitions – the “me” – while older people come to value and focus on family and community – the “we.”

As our own culture matures, the “we” concept is going to take a stronger place. Social media is accelerating the process. It is also bringing us back to the original wisdom of the species. For decades, technology acted to separate and isolate us, at work and at home. The communal movie house experience was largely replaced by the passive isolation of television, for example. But social media is restoring social values in the virtual space, connecting people in new ways that are also very old. The basic dynamic of connection doesn’t change, only the outer mechanism.

I don’t mean to imply that Asian cultures are superior to the American one or vice versa, only point out the different approach. Individualism brings rewards in innovation, personal expression and happiness. I believe that the future will connect both cultural idea sets, creating greatness in ways I can’t yet imagine.

Trust is an essential element in every business transaction, whether working together or exchanging a product or service for money. The worldly person of business will soon understand how important it is to let clients, colleagues, all the people we are or want to be connected to professionally, into our “personal” networks, because it establishes who we are, our character, that other people like us, that we may be a little weird, but not scary weird. It may seem awkward that people you work with know your mother loves you, but only at first. On a basic, visceral level, this communicates something about your regularity, your humanness, your connection to me and my experience.

The people who understand this, and learn how to make sophisticated use of social media to advance their personal brand, and those of their groups, have a competitive advantage, and a huge personal benefit in multiple dimensions.  The sophisticated social technologist will get more and better deals, and will be more connected in real and tangible ways to others, and therefore happier than those who don’t get it.

The younger generation sort of gets this. They don’t seem to have as much fear, and that’s good. Some of them also don’t give it proper respect, and that’s not so good. Mistakes are OK, though, and part of the process of being human. Everyone who is engaged in this great experiment is watching what others do, it’s in the DNA of the thing. And hopefully everyone is learning.

For those of you who, like me, had fear but want to overcome it, some advice:

• Understand the medium before you use it much. Read about it, try it out, look at what other folks are doing and think about what does and doesn’t work for you.
• Act as if every email you send, and every posting you put up, is going to be read by the entire world. Email is not secure, and the recipient can easily forward, intentionally or by accident. Private networks get opened, or may have friends of friends you didn’t know are there. This is something I try to make sure all my clients understand.
• It’s OK to be conservative about the medium, especially at first. There are definitely those who are entirely too loose about sharing, and are already learning the folly of cursing and saying outrageous things in Facebook. Only a fool would shout racist, sexist or dirty jokes in the public square, and a bigger fool puts them where they can never be erased. But don’t be afraid, just cautious.
• Be authentic. It’s OK to be a little weird, that’s just human. It’s OK to have fun, but make sure it’s in good spirit, that is, not attacking or belittling your connections, or ideally, anyone. Be constructive as you can. It’s OK to say I like this quality and don’t like that thing she said, but not as helpful to just say so-and-so sucks. This is about integrity.
• Don’t lie, or, if you are going to fib at least carry the burden of being consistent. If you called in with a bad back, don’t post about your great day on the slopes in Facebook, or you will get caught. Integrity again.
• Don’t expect to control it, allow a little chaos. People are going to say things to you or about you that you may not like. Take a deep breath and think about it a while before responding. Accept the comment as information for your process and don’t take it personally, regardless of the commenter’s intention. Respond with dignity and love, and this shows the strength of your character, highlighted by challenge.
• Do have fun with it. You have passions and values. Express them. Share your sincere feelings, likes and dislikes. It’s OK to have an opinion, and to have opinions about opinions.
• Be kind. There is much negativity in our cultures, and the world is such a beautiful, wonderful place.
• Be helpful. Personally, helping other beings is something that gives me deep, lasting satisfaction, and I know I’m not alone in this. I’ve also learned that, if you start with simply helping, without focusing on the paycheck, good thing do come, in great measure.
• What you put out there comes back times three. And three times good is an order of magnitude better than three times bad. It’s funky math, but it’s true.

Speaking of being helpful, and as a boldface plug, The Web Shaman is here to help people and organizations with their Web sites. Take a look around the site. Drop me an email, connect to me in social media (links are at the top of every page), or give me a call. I don’t know everything, but I know a lot, and I know a lot of good people. Initial consultations are always free, and I’ll do my best to have three good ideas for you. Thank you for reading.

Related links:

• Chinese Business Practices, Culture and Etiquette
• Japanese Business Culture Training Courses

PATCA Kickstart meeting

The host, Mr. Terry Hartsfield (www.hartsfieldco.com), a customer experiences expert, introduced us to PATCA, a non-profit association founded in 1975 to help Bay Area professional experts to network and learn, and to offer various services, including listing on the Website and business discounts.

The featured speaker, Mr. Randy Block (www.randyblock.com), a career transition coach and expert, spoke on the topic “Before You Make It About Them, Make It About You.” In keeping with the theme of career transition, Randy spoke about doing business in the context of old norms, new norms and a look to the future. Back in the day, achievements from before 9/11 mattered, labor was in demand, and a professional or technical worker could have a focused skill package and get a solid job, which led to what he calls “buzzword overkill,” including phrases like “proven track record,” and “extensive experience.” (Note to self: Scrub the resume).

In today’s context, in Randy’s view, there has been a shift to an emphasis on personal branding and social networking (the theme of the day). Randy asked around the room, what’s your brand? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, so I was ready when he got to me. I said something like, “I’m Kevin Boyd and as The Web Shaman, I help people and organizations envision their objectives, then use the Web to bring them to life.” He liked it, said it was different and memorable (yay!), leading to a key point, that uniqueness is important, to stand out from the crowd. It helps to be a thought leader and subject matter expert. The new emphasis is on listening closely to the client, then giving them what’s needed in digestible bits, following multiple streams of revenue, instead of trying to deliver large solutions for one big pay day. Then a mention of today’s social media led to some depth on networking, where the emphasis should be on making connections and developing relationships, and not on selling yourself or anything else. And the need for connections extends to staying in tune with news related to companies of interest, and leveraging change to generate business.

For the future, Randy says much of employment will be project-oriented, and that competition in the expert space is increasing, that it’s important to have multiple streams of revenue, that globalization points to a need for facility with languages and cultures, that the Web and social media create a new way of connecting, and that it’s important to remain relevant to client needs. As the talk ended, he emphasized the importance of listening, which resonated with me. All in all, a good talk.

Pharma and social media

Following the theme of networking and the Web, I headed south for the pharma social media conference at the BioCenter, a biological sciences lab and office facility, where a group of about 50 to 75 people were in attendance. Much of the crowd were from pharma companies of various sizes, with others like me, with an interest in either life sciences or social networking, scattered around the room. We had a nice lunch before Ms. Barbara Lavery (twitter.com/bar2bar2), President of Zoomedia, a life sciences marketing and communications company, began her talk.

With a laundry list of organizational fears about social media on screen behind her, mostly related to the strict regulatory context of pharma marketing and communications, but also with some very generalizable concerns about control, Barbara first pointed to the importance of the word “social” in social media. “Social means it’s a conversation,” she said, between people, and between companies and their customers.

Practical advice to companies:

• Set a policy for how to appropriately use social media at your company
• Educate your workforce about it, starting with the executive suite
• Focus attention on listening and learning rather than simply broadcasting
• Make a coherent plan for how to best use this powerful tool
• Try it!

The older Web approach of “build it and they will come” just doesn’t work any more. We have to go where the people are!

An audience member brought up the importance of auditing, to measure what’s happening so that approaches, voices and strategies can be adjusted and improved. Good point!

Key stakeholders that should be creating teams to develop the social media strategy and policies:

• Corporate Communications
• HR
• Product Marketing
• R&D
• Regulatory advisors
• Patient advocates

A participant from a local university asked, “What about IT? Shouldn’t they be in on this?” Barbara responded with a concern that IT so often blocks this kind of innovation. Another audience member said that’s only because they are responsible for enforcing policy. Barbara asked the room “Is there anyone here who works in IT?” and I was the only person to raise a hand. When I got my chance, I said “IT doesn’t want to own the process. But, going back to your original values, please don’t leave us out of the conversation.” We usually have good ideas and knowledge about new technologies, in my experience.

Once again, I heard the theme of my day: “It’s about listening.” We need to monitor the social streams we set up and use. Learn who’s current and getting impact on brand and corporate identity. Barbara talked about a number of related sites, such as Patients Like Me, a community space for people dealing with chronic conditions, TweatReach, a tool for gauging how far one’s Twitter feed is reaching, and Seeking Alpha, a market and financial analysis site. Also Google Alerts for relevant news notifications, SocialMention, a tool for search and analysis in social, and a plug for Zoomedia’s own social media CMS tool.

On building a social media toolkit:

• Use the right tool for each objective
• Decide what tactics work best
• Try it out, then carefully monitor the results
• Listen, then adjust
• Don’t be overly promotional
• Be transparent and relevant
• Be ethical and non-manipulative
• Be human

The conference ended with a review of Facebook company pages, and how pharma companies are making use of them, within the constraints of FDA regulation. Let me conclude with a list of other interesting sites I learned about during the talk:

• Sermo – A community for doctors only, for sharing patient experiences (compliant with HIPAA, of course) and treatment experiences
• E-Patients – Because health professionals can’t do it alone
• ECairn – A company developing tools for social media analysis
• Alice Communications – A Francophilic pharma business development company

Bonus item I learned about while setting Twitter follows to various folks I met that day:

• Twittercism – A Twitterphilic blog critiquing all things Twitter; The Web Shaman especially recommends “5 mistakes you’re (still) making on Twitter,” and related posts

All in all, a great day networking, listening, and learning.

Paleolithic shamen visualized prey and other animals

Picture, if you will, the cave paintings at Lascaux, where paleolithic artists created images of bison, dear, horses and other animals on the cave’s walls, deep under ground. There is a theory that these artworks were painted by tribal shamen, men and women who’s life purpose was to channel the spiritual into the everyday world.

In this view, the artist was not only reflecting past experiences in this world, but also projecting the intentions of the tribe. Close to nature, paleolithic people had wisdom that was largely lost in more modern ages, wisdom we in our present society are only now re-learning. Known variously as “The Secret,” “The Law of Attraction,” “intentioning,” and “the power of positive thinking,” there’s a notion that, if one holds something that one wants or needs in mind, and especially if one visualizes it, one attracts that thing into reality. So, the paleolithic artist shaman painted prey animals, to attract them into their world, in order to serve the crucial purpose of feeding the tribe.

The name of this Web site, The Web Shaman, is a metaphor for this idea in the context of our modern world. My purpose is to help people and organizations to paint their prized objectives, or ‘prey animals,’ on the virtual cave wall: the Web, the most essential communications medium of our time. We begin by talking, to understanding each other’s resonant core values, the irreducible motivations and aspirations of each group or person, their higher purpose. I then help them to channel this “spirt,” creating and shaping how that spirit is expressed in Web pages and sites, in the form of ideas, organization, designs, technical solutions, and functional teams. In this way, together we create Web sites that not only reflect the person’s or organization’s current reality, but also attract the outcomes desired, or something better.

The Web Shaman motto is “envision greatness – capture the future.”

My brand is a metaphor. You will find me a thoroughly modern person who is both scientific and spiritual. It is my pleasure to provide a free initial consultation, to discuss a Web site or intended project, and offer ideas and suggestions, to begin by being helpful. If the relationship that develops feels like a good fit to both of us, it is my pleasure to join your team.

Related links:

• Wikipedia entry on Lascaux
• Wikipedia entry on cave painting theories and interpretations
• Lascaux (a virtual tour, in French/une visite virtuelle en français)

1. Productivity – If it’s not directly related to work, it’s just wasted work time.
2. Control – They might say something bad, about the company, about the boss, about a coworker.
3. Secrets – Intentionally or not, folks may give away the company jewels.

Productivity

Slacker employees don’t need Facebook to slack. They can run games, stare into space, or make personal phone calls. There are a million ways to kill time on the boss’ dime. Blocking social media imparts a false sense of security. A good boss knows how productive his/her people are. She can count the widgets coming off the line. He can compare tickets across the group, or establish other fair and accurate metrics of performance. She can drop in frequently to see what employees are up to. He can simply ask employees how productive they feel they or their co-workers are. Chopping access to temptations is no substitute for knowing the character of your people, and motivating them to work hard by inspiring loyalty and making work as fun as possible. If an employee seems to be having a productivity problem, talk about it first, then monitor their activity. Only if needed, selectively block the problem sites, including social media, gambling, etc. for just that employee, letting them know privately as part of a plan of improvement.

Control

Facebook doesn’t make problem employees more of a problem. Cutting off social media won’t stop anyone from saying bad things online. Breaking social media also stops people from saying good things, like “I like this company,” or “I’m really proud to be working on [insert product name here].” Social has huge potential to build a brand, and the voice of the worker has power. Future consumers will be very savvy about how companies treat their workers, it’s already happening. The secret here is to ensure that the workers mostly have nice things to say, about the company, about each other. Encouraging openness and connections between workers helps bring unhappiness into the sanitizing light of day. If bad behavior rises to the level of bullying or harassment, cutting social may be an appropriate element of progressive discipline. It will help if we remind everyone that nothing shared in social media is truly private, and we should all be adults here, people. Be aware that workers have rights to free expression via social media, even if the boss doesn’t like what they say, according to a recent court ruling related to a worker’s complaint about her boss, posted to Facebook from home.

Trade and other secrets

This is the one area where a good argument can be made for selective blocking of social media. The WikiLeaks incident showed the military why it should care about this. We don’t want soldiers casually updating Facebook and giving away their position or unit strength to the enemy online. The product incubators of Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. have reason to be concerned about engineers bragging or gushing and revealing what the next product launch will be. On the other hand, these are the very people these companies most want to keep happy and engaged. So training around the issue is vital for these units. These are smart people. Trust them. Remind them not to give away secrets. It may also make sense to limit social media for new employees, contractors, temps, and anyone who has not yet earned full trust.

What’s in social media for businesses?

First, it’s about connections. Work groups connected in simple hub-and-spoke relationships, where the boss is at the center and workers mostly connect with the boss, was a very successful model for the industrial age, but is severely limiting in the post-industrial age we now occupy. It has been demonstrated that increasing connections between workers to enhance relationships increases collaboration, and increases unit efficiency and productivity by an order of magnitude. And no, I’m not making this up. There is real social science that points to this.

Second, a happy worker is a productive worker. A little slack is just human, and an intrinsic part of work. That’s why the law says workers are entitled to regular breaks. All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy, who never thinks for himself and doesn’t get done much more than the minimum required to not get fired. A recent survey highlighted the number of people, especially young people, who said they’d quit if they couldn’t do a little Facebook at work. I’m pretty sure this factor goes up with the creative workers so vital to the industries of tomorrow, knowledge and technology workers who build bitchin’ products because it’s fun.

Third, and this is were we come back to the title, it’s about the brand. The companies of the future understand that culture is important to the brand. People won’t want to buy stuff from companies that are mean to their employees, who pollute the planet, and who just don’t give a damn about being nice. Future companies understand that values can’t just be a plaque on the wall with some blah-blah about “our vision is this” and “our mission is that.” Organizations must walk the talk. Future companies understand that the social genie is out of the bottle already. It’s here to stay. They are already trying to figure out how to use it to leverage their brand to out-compete the lazy, backwards competition, to grab the consumer by the heart and make him or her pay while smiling. It’s also a bad idea to point this thing out without pointing it in. It’s not coherent, and that incoherence creates dissonance, and that dissonance undermines the brand. For companies with blocking, both consumers and workers will wonder, “what have they got to hide?” The openness of social media encourages top-to-bottom values consistency, the very thing companies most need to evolve their cultures, embrace the future and compete with others who get it.

In summary, the Web Shaman has the following recommendations:

• Have policies: On what is and isn’t appropriate social behavior, online and in person, at work and away. On how to do social right. On when not to do social. On how much personal social at work is acceptable. On when monitoring will take place. On when social will be blocked.
• Train, train, train: Make your policies clear, including social media and behavior. Remind employees to treat every email and posting, regardless of privacy settings, as if the entire world is listening. Email is not secure. What you tell a friend can make it out of your network. We are all expected to act like adults, ladies and gentlemen.
• Block selectively: Work with your IT group to develop selective blocking policies and technologies. If the worker is military, is doing work under a security clearance, or is subject to progressive discipline for workplace misbehavior or lack of productivity, they can expect to be blocked. If the worker is a new hire on a probationary period, a contractor, temp, other non-employee, or has not yet earned the full trust of the company, they might be blocked, check with the boss or HR. Everyone else will have an expectation, in the fullness of time, that they will be able to do a reasonable amount of social activity at work, including social media. And consider simply telling specific workers, or all workers, not to use specific social media on work time, rather than mechanically blocking, because this is a more flexible practice.

Related links:

• Why employers shouldn’t block Facebook (RiseSmart)
• A warning for employers – block social networks and lose employees (Social Media Today)
• To Block or Not to Block Facebook and Social Media in the Workplace (Cisco)
• No Facebook At Work: Majority of US Companies Block Social Networks (Huffington Post)
• Feds settle case of woman fired over Facebook site (Mercury News)
• Create an organization of people ready to make history (CultureSync)
• A Better Way to Win: Profiting from Purpose