Big day tomorrow – Merseyside derby and the Gran Classico

As an Everton fan I normally approach the derby games with excitement but our awful form coupled with our injury list havn’t filled me with optimism this time round. Thankfully Liverpool don’t seem in any better form so we may well sneak a result and turn our season round.

You’ll have to forgive me for being less than partisan but the game I’m really looking forward to is the Gran Classico between Barca and Real Madrid. For me its the biggest match of the year between the biggest teams in the world. Hopefully Messi and Ronaldo will both be passed fit for what should be a belter. Can’t wait.

Tags: barca, everton, Football

LinkedIn gets 3 million UK members

I read with interest the discussion over at TechCrunch this morning about business networking site LinkedIn surpassing 3 million UK members recently.  Many commenters mentioned how they have accounts but never use the site, therefore casting doubt on the worth of the 3 million number.

It strikes me though that this is the same issue regardless of what social media site you mention because I hear exactly the same arguments used when people discuss Twitter.  “Oh I’ve signed up but can’t see the point so have never used it” they will say.

Of course if people have no reason for using a service then it will be very difficult for them to ever gain any value from it.  It’s no different in the social media world than it is in any other activity.  If you have no goal in mind and no strategy for achieving this goal then how can you possibly get value from the activity?

So the moral of the story for me is don’t do something just for fashions sake or to keep up with the Jones.  If you’re going to use LinkedIn go in with a clear goal in mind for what you want to get out of it.

Tags: LinkedIn, social media, Twitter

What would get employees talking to each other?

SalesForce released a new enterprise social networking service today called Chatter with the aim of encouraging people to do what they do on Facebook et al with their colleagues.

It’s one of those issues that’s considerably easier to suggest than to implement as the two environments are very, very different. In community building there is an oft used rule of thumb that for every 100 people looking at a social community, 90 will just read, 9 will reply to topics and just 1 will start new discussions. As with all rules of thumb this isn’t going to be the case every time but it’s worth considering that whereas Facebook, LinkedIn et al have the numbers to make this work, in your own internal network your numbers will likely be much less.

As with most things in life, it’s worth investigating what you wish to get out of this before you get started.

If it’s gaining a more social understanding of your employees then it’s probably safe to say that use of existing platforms such as Facebook is likely to yield better results. There are already many ‘I work at …’ style groups on Facebook so that would seem a good opportunity to mingle with your employees in their natural habitat.

If however you’re looking to improve your corporate knowledge base and encourage knowledge sharing then this offers much more potential. Of course building a platform does not mean people will come, so here are a few steps you can take to encourage knowledge sharing within your company.

Tips for encouraging knowledge sharing

1. Outline your vision for this.  You first need to create a culture of knowledge sharing so need to communicate the vision that this is a positive thing both for the individual and the company.
2. Reinforce through actions.  You then need to reinforce this vision through actions.  Reward positive behaviour, not just financially but through praise and recognition.
3. Start with the natives.  There will inevitably be people who will take to this like a duck to water.  Start with these people and get them sharing knowledge extensively.
4. Use success stories to cross the chasm.  Use any success stories that these early adaptors achieve to help sell it to the rest of your employees.
5. Lead by example.  You have to do what you’re asking people to do so you should be one of the main users of your internal network.
6. Embed into human processes.  If you can get these positive behaviours included within inductions for instance it will help reinforce behaviour and create the right kind of knowledge sharing culture.

Don’t forget to look outside as well as inside

If you can get that far then you’ve done very well, but don’t restrict yourself to improving the knowledge sharing within your company walls.  There is a whole load of knowledge outside of your company.  Communities of practice exist in a vast array of areas that can see your employees tapping into the knowledge base of thousands of peers from around the world.  The CMI for instance is soon to launch a management community that will be a great place for managers to learn from others.  Look out for these kind of opportunities and encourage staff to learn from these communities.  This kind of social media is miles from the waste of time that Facebook et al can appear to be.

I’m a great believer in the power of communities and getting employees to talk to one another is a great thing.  It would be interesting to hear from people that have done this successfully.

Tags: Community, Facebook, km, Knowledge Management, LinkedIn, Online Communities, Social network, Social network service, Twitter

Do you want to make good predictions?

Then the latest research suggests you shouldn’t think about it. Ap Dijksterhuis and his colleagues have just shown that people with expertise in football are better at predicting match outcomes when they spend time not consciously thinking about their predictions.

You can read more about the experiment here

Tags: Football, predictions, Research

Are you passive or proactive?

Since I started swimming seriously as a teenager I’ve been going to the gym. 99% of the time the gym attendants would sit at their desk, usually watching the tv in the corner. I’d see people doing their exercises, often with bad technique, which at best reduces the impact of their work, at worst could cause injury. Very seldom did the attendants ever come over and offer assistance or advice to the people with less experience than themselves.

It seems much the same in business. People may look at others, be they colleagues or customers, and see them making potential mistakes but so often will refrain from suggesting potential alternatives, instead sticking to the bare minimum, until of course things break down and everyone becomes stressed as a result.

If this describes you then make today day zero. From this point on, if you see something that you feel could be done better don’t wait passively for things to break before you raise your concerns. Be proactive and make sure things are right from the off.

Tags: Fitness, Gym

The value of ghost written commentary

Today it was revealed that Barack Obama has never used Twitter before, something that perhaps the 2.1 million people that follow his account may be a little concerned about.

It seems indicative of a growing trend though. The higher up an individual gets, the more valuable their opinion and knowledge becomes, but the less often they actually share any of it. It’s not just Twitter accounts that are ghost written by PR departments. I dare say most of the columns written in newspapers and magazines are done in the same way.

If what you’re reading is really the work of a PR professional rather than the individual you’re hoping to hear from, it has to be asked, what is the point of it?

After all we live in a society where honesty and integrity are valued, yet here we have high power individuals essentially duping their followers. Do those 2.1 million people tuning into Obama’s Twitter account care that it’s not actually him they’re getting views from? Maybe, maybe not, but for me it’s a matter of personal integrity that if you’re putting your name to something then it better darn well be you that’s producing it. Anything else is simply not on.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Ghostwriter, Newspaper, Public relations, Twitter

Are the British naturally uncreative?

There was an interesting article in the Economist this week bemoaning the lack of flair amongst leading managers, citing several British bosses as good examples of dour leaders with little creativity or originality, and it got me thinking whether this is somehow a British trait.

This weekend was also a big one for sport, with the English team in action on the football, rugby and cricket fields. The script was similar in each, the doughty English outplayed by their technically superior opponents. The English football team have long played a brand of football that rarely quickens the pulse and against Brazil it was men against boys. In the rugby league the English team played manfully for the first 50 minutes before the inevitable Australian onslaught came and the thrashing duly delivered. The cricket team were equally crushed in todays 20/20 game against South Africa with few Englishmen showing any of the flair and verve on display by the South Africans. The rugby union team did at least manage a victory against Argentina but again the display lacked any flair or imagination with the team relying, as seems to be the case so often, on dull ten man rugby.

Amongst the various post mortems of these failures many possible explanations were given, but by far the most common was an overwhelming fear of failure, a fear of trying something different only to be ridiculed should it go wrong. And I wonder if its a part of the British spirit? Americans have the ‘American dream’ that seems to bestow a can do spirit amongst its people. Australians also seem to lack any of the insecurities that inflict us Brits.

It seems the same in the business world. I recently read a book about the incredible startup culture in Israel. I struggle to see anything remotely similar in Britain. Where are all the startups? Where are the people putting things on the line to craft something new and original? It’s surely not for a lack of brains or talent. Our universities are amongst the finest in the world yet there seems an almost embarrassment about success, a disdain for those that want to make the most of their lives.

Is it a forlorn hope that Britain unleashes the creativity within or are we a lost cause?

Tags: Business, creativity, Leadership, Sport

Why national anthems require no cheerleader

I’ve never been a fan of this modern trend of anthems being sung by an official singer at sporting events. They always seem to sound so much better when the crowd belt it out in unison. As if to emphasise this point compare this shambles performed at the recent France v South Africa game with the rousing rendition of the Welsh anthem from a few years ago.

No real comparison is there? Maybe one day the people that organise these events will see sense and return things to how they should be.

Tags: anthem, rugby, singing, South Africa

Banks and ID theft

I’ve recently switched bank accounts to Alliance & Leicester and activated my card today. After it was activated the call operator tried to sell me ID theft insurance.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony of someone who it is impossible for me to verify was actually from Alliance & Leicester, and who had just secured a wide range of my personal information in order to activate my card, was now trying to sell me insurance against someone stealing my ID.

Far be it from me to advocate phishing or ID theft in anyway, but it would seem much easier to send out fake letters with a fake telephone line than it would be to set up a fake website.

At least with a website you can judge fairly accurately that the site you’re on is in fact an official one. How can you do the same with a telephone number?

Tags: banks, id theft, phishing, security

Frustrating experience with my Everton fan page

A few years ago I setup an Everton fan page on Facebook as there was no official page at that time. It proved really popular with fans and quickly grew to 20,000+ followers.

Recently Facebook have been cracking down on pages and as mine was not an official Everton authorized page my publishing rights were revoked. Finding out how to contest this decision was an incredibly difficult job, but that’s probably for another blog.

What has amazed me however was the response from Everton when this issue was put to them to see if they could help out.

Instead of seeing the potential for communicating with this large list of fans the club instead started threatening legal action for using things like the club logo and daring to use the clubs own Facebook application on the page. The only way they would help is if the page was changed to something not mentioning Everton at all.

Talk about biting your nose off to spite your face. Such a shame as football clubs are such a natural audience for social media as fans are so willing to do an awful lot of work on the clubs behalf. Sadly few clubs seem willing or able to let go of control and leverage this enormously powerful resource. A message to the clubs should surely be that the brain power of these supporters is just as important, if not more so, than the money you can extract from them.

Tags: everton, Facebook, fan pages, social media