Navigating the Social Media Landscape

"Social Media" is a squishy topic to a lot of people, and particularly to decision makers within many organizations.  The gurus seem to know what they are talking about -- mostly -- but even the concept of "social media expert" is riddled with fallacy.  The problem, as I see it, is that social media has risen so far, so fast, to become a marketing, communications, and organizational priority, and there have been a great number of moderately savvy folks that have benefited from passing themselves off as "experts" along the way.  It's not necessarily these peoples' fault: while most of us can Facebook with the best of 'em, a great number of organizations simply lack the in-house expertise to make sense of social media from a mission perspective, also know as, "how do we derive real business or organizational value from these services?"  It's a tough challenge to find true experts in a field that is only a few years old.

I was therefore quite pleased yesterday when my friend, Erin Zagursky, sent me a link to "A CMO's Guide To The Social Media Landscape", a great article from CMO.com (Erin works in communications, University Relations at The College of William and Mary to be specific, so she should know a good article when she sees one - thanks, Erin).  I really wish that I had a copy of this article and the really nice chart that accompanies it when I discussed social media with a group over lunch a few weeks ago; the chart is really great.  CMO writes:

Social media marketing is expected to dominate this year -- so much so that 81% of CMOs plan to link their annual revenues to their social media investment, according to a recent survey by The CMO Club and Bazaarvoice. But the growing list of online social media sites makes choosing the right route complicated. From Facebook to YouTube to Digg and beyond, which media outlets will net the most bang for the buck in terms of customer communication, brand exposure, traffic, and SEO?

"The Social Landscape" chart, as published by the apparently quite insightful folks at 97th Floor, accompanied the article.




That graphic is a bit tough to read, so I recommend downloading the PDF either from my files or straight away from CMO.com.  Forward this thing, print it out, share it with your friends and co-workers, get it in front of people who need to make decisions about where to allocate time and effort in social media.

I have personally opted to use a few of these.  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube make the cut.  I would also add a blogging (either through Blogger or WordPress, as each have their pros and cons) to the list.  Twitter is a tool to reach and interact with "connectors," the tech-savvy people in society that influence others and care about being plugged in.  Facebook is the means to richly communicate with the masses, and more particularly with your most loyal fans.  LinkedIn connects to and exposes professional networks.  YouTube is, of course, the leading video platform, providing a number of ways to package, mix, and share your (and others') videos.

All that said, the needs (and time to devote) of every person and organization differ.  The trick here is finding the right social media cocktail that balances your goals, your audience, and your available resources.

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Nomar Garciaparra retires with Boston Red Sox, sets example for all, restores my faith in humanity

Nomar Garciaparra, Boston Red Sox shortstop from 1997 to 2004, signed a one-day contract with the team and promptly retired this morning.  I don't write often here of my love of baseball and the Red Sox in particular, but this is such a poignant moment for me, and for Red Sox fans everywhere.  First, a defense of this posts title...

Nomar's actions today set an example for all.
Few of us are professional baseball players, but most of us are professionals at doing something.  Unfortunately, not all of us act professionally all the time, and we all know that professional athletes are far from saints.  But today, like on so many other days, Nomar was a professional, and he was rewarded by an organization he loves and fans that love him.

Why today's events restore my faith in humanity.
Not to say that my faith in humanity needed to be restored (I am a big believer in our collectively boundless potential), and not to say that (even if my faith was lacking) international aid workers in Haiti or any of the other heroes in our midst aren't doing a fine job, but... Five and a half years after being traded away, Nomar remembered where he came from, the people that made him "Nomaa!", and he came home to offer thanks and call it a career.  In a world where loyalty is expensive and job hopping is sometimes cheap (though less cheap than it used to be), where athletes are paid millions while those that pay them (the fans?) are not, Nomar was a class act.  Sometimes the little gestures really mean a lot.

And finally, why do I care so much?
I love baseball.  It is truly one of the most enjoyable diversions I have in my life.  I love to watch it, I love to go to the games, I love to follow the players, and (when I was in college) I even loved to play it... very badly, on an intramural softball team.  I didn't always love it, though.  I played little league as a kid, and what an awful experience that was!  Not only was I terrible, but I didn't have many friends on the team, and those two realities combined in the form of a lot of lonely time spent on the bench watching the talented kids play.  But as life went on and I aged further away from those terrible memories of being ten years old, I began to love baseball again.  With so many other things in life to worry about, I really bought in to what Jimmy Fallon would later tell me (in the movie Fever Pitch) is the goodness of "believing in something you have no control over" (or something like that).  Baseball, in a feeling, just makes me happy.  Back when I was falling in love (with baseball), it was Nomar who dominated everything... the shortstop and best player on the team I loved, the pride of America's greatest city, that was Nomar Garciaparra.  Just as I have come to love baseball, so too do I love this moment today, seeing my favorite player come home to my favorite team in such respectable fashion.

It's a good day to be a Red Sox fan, and I am not the only one who thinks so.

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How do you recognize and reward your people?

Messages about our upcoming "Best in Class Competition" (BICC) are going out at work.  On the Coast Guard side of my life, I see folks taking a hard look at the Coast Guard Innovation program and considering how they can take part.  These are both great programs in the two places where I spend my professional life, but they are just that: programs.  Programs are great, but my thinking today goes more to the things that individuals and teams do in the vast spans of time between official programs.  Leadership is about far more than grand proclamations and new initiatives.

Last week there was a great response to my question, "How do leaders promote and support the health and well-being of those that they lead?"  It seems that out in the world each week there is a new challenge that presents itself, so I'll try to make these questions an each-Wednesday theme.  This week I had occasion to see talented, hard-working people find success and then be largely unrecognized by the otherwise good people that are "in charge."  It's the classic "when the boss takes credit for the great work that you did."  My question this week is, therefore:

How do you recognize and reward your people, motivating tomorrow's improvement over today's already good results?

Please consider that I am not necessarily talking about group call-outs, public recognition, certificates, trophies, and ribbons.  Those are surely a part of the equation, but I am looking for the whole picture, and I am convinced that there has to be something out there more meaningful than the same-old.  I look forward to and appreciate your thoughts!

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Students begin to understand, embrace, and honor traditions and customs through "Basic Introduction to the Coast Guard"

Every organization, every company, every group of people have their traditions and customs.  At work we have bagels every Friday morning.  When I was in college, thousands of us got together outside every December and listened to the President of The College read us How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

What makes the Coast Guard, Coast Guard Auxiliary, and indeed all of the United States Uniformed Services unique, we explained to our students last week, is how deeply rooted in centuries of tradition we are.  Thinking back to our discussion of the Coast Guard's Core Values, we discussed how we honor and respect not only the public, ourselves and those we serve with, but also the traditions and customs that span generations, and how we derive a measure of our devotion from the connections and sense of purpose that those customs engender.  So began the "Basic Introduction to the Coast Guard" (BIC) lesson on "Customs, Courtesies, and Traditions."

The enduring lesson from this discussion, the one that can be taken out into any organization, is this: understand, embrace, and honor those customs that make your organization unique, and then cultivate their appreciation in the hearts and minds of others.  Make them an integral part of your organization's social fabric, set an example, and ensure that everyone from the shop floor to the corner office, from orientation training to the exit interview, understand embrace, and honor those customs as well.

Customs, Courtesies, Traditions

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Particular customs, terminology, ways of doing things make us unique (in any organization).  I am surprised at how words like "hallway" have completely disappeared from my vocabulary over the years. Often minor, part of a strong group is having small cultural momentos that each of the members share.

Coast Guard Auxiliarists often are more relaxed or informal in the way they work or communicate.  When you live and work a life outside of the Coast Guard, you naturally bring many aspects of that life to the place you serve.  Auxiliarists are unique among people in uniform in the way that, when amongst themselves, tend to prefer a first name over a title, and certainly a handshake over a salute.  Ultimately, though, we are with our active duty and reserve counterparts, all part of the same service.  Knowing how, and understand when to observe and practice time-honored traditions and courtesies is an important part of our service.

In honoring our traditions, we show respect for the public, those we serve with, those that have gone before us, and those that will follow our example.  I touched on this point earlier, but it is worth reiterating.  From time to time we encounter someone that doesn't meet a high standard.  Everyone has their reasons, but greeting a Captain or observing colors is about far more than going through motions.  These are daily, even instantaneous reminders of what I have heard called a "proud history, worthy mission."

Be friendly.  On a lighter note, I always urge my students in this class to just be friendly.  There is a time and a place for everything, but every time and every place is proper for respectful friendliness.  Whether in the "hallway" at work or the "passageway" aboard ship, offer that "warm and friendly greeting" to the colleagues or shipmates you work with.  It's a lesson that works anywhere, in any organization.

As always, the Basic Introduction to the Coast Guard (BIC) material is available online at http://link.cgauxnet.us/bic. Read this previous post for more background on the course or to learn how we got it underway. Feel free to use the material yourself, and of course please leave comments as to how we might improve BIC for future students. Thanks for reading, and thank you for your service!

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Colin and Alma Powell take on the high school dropout challenge, and then answer the question, "Why do you serve?"

Former Secretary of State, and retired Army General, Colin Powell and Mrs. Alma Powell hit the airwaves last week discussing their hopes and work to keep more kids in school.  They spoke of a challenge and their reasons for taking it on, but as I watched the interview, I couldn't help but think that we had just found this week's very appropriate answer to the question, "Why do you serve?"  (See what Lorraine Nordlinger, Red Cross Volunteer, had to say last week).

Interesting to note that NPR tackled nearly the same issue several days ago (did I miss the memo on this week being the week the debate the American drop-out rate?).  Further interesting (and shocking) is the statistic suggesting just how many high school students we're talking about here.

An American teenager drops out of high school every 26 seconds.  Yes, seconds.  Wow.  Take a moment to watch the interview below.


Several ideas from the interview stick out to me.  First is the notion that this is not only an educational challenge, but an economic and security concern as well.  Too often we look at a challenge of national importance and think of it in such simple terms, but this one isn't simple.  America's ability to excel in the future, as a nation, depends not only on having "all hands on deck" to work hard and move the country forward (an impossible dream so long as we have a kid jumping overboard every 26 seconds), but we also depend on not having to reverse course, turn around, rescue, and then spend a lifetime caring for those that do drop out.  I am reminded of a speech I heard President Obama give last year, in which he explained to kids that they couldn't quite on themselves and quit on the country, because they are too important, because we need them too much.  Every person that fails to achieve his or her own potential not only hurts their own chances in life, but the chances of all those that might have benefited from that person's success.  An economic and security problem indeed.

Secondly, and more personally, was Mrs. Powell's explanation as to why this issue is so important to her, answering the question "Why do you serve?"  She says:

"For those that are given much, much is expected."

I repeat, "For those that are given much, much is expected."

Thank you for telling this story and taking this issue on.  Thank you for your service.

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