SBA

IT's a Social Thing

In my last article I touched on “Digital”, which became one of the most dominant business buzzwords of 2015. Over the last few years we have seen the emergence of Digital, and the Chief Digital Officer, (CDO)  in government and business, as organisations start to respond to the new world order and realise that in order to engage with people they must be online and that their organisations must become online citizens. Of course there are plenty of people engaging with each other in the “old” ways, and the majority of organisations are a long way from embracing Digital or appointing CDOs, but the transition is underway. Over the past five years the Digitalisation (can that really be a word?) of organisations has acquired unstoppable momentum in response to society’s usage of ICT.

It is over thirty years since I started meeting people via the Internet, in topic specific discussion facilities on Usenet, an online mass communication system which predates the web. It was of course populated by a very select minority, few people had Internet access in the 1980’s, but I made online acquaintances through our common interest and expertise in particular topics - I regularly conversed with “friends” I had never met. Some of my “real” friends and acquaintances thought this was a bit bizarre, the idea of real engagement with people whom one has never met in the flesh. Nevertheless the concept flourished, and when the web came along it was quickly followed by Internet Bulletin Boards which, because they worked in a web browser, were easier to use and more accessible to people than the rather geeky Usenet.

The year 2000 brought a minor revolution in online relationships, with the introduction of Friends Reunited, a website which re-connected past acquaintances. As I spent much of my childhood in an international boarding school Friends Reunited enabled me to reconnect to many old school friends scattered across the globe and with whom I hadn’t communicated with in over 20 years. The messaging on Friends Reunited was clumsy, but at least I was able to see how these people with whom I had shared a decade of my youth had gone on in life.

Friends Reunited was of course made obsolete by The Facebook, launched in 2004, open to the public since 2006, and dominant in the business of connecting acquaintances by 2010. Today Facebook connects over one and a half billion people. I’ve given you this little history lesson for one purpose - to emphasis the speed of social change. For the vast majority of those reading this column 2004 is not very long ago, most of us were already established in our careers, and 2010 when Facebook became truly dominant in social media is almost yesterday. Facebook started rolling out pages for businesses in 2009, now over forty million businesses now have Facebook pages.

Briefly then, “Social Media” has been gently evolving for thirty years, but it is only over the past six years, the first half of the 2010’s, in which it has gone mainstream. Many of us now have accounts on Facebook, Twitter etc. - in the developed world social media usage spans all generations and all social strata, about half of all North Americans and Britons use Facebook frequently - clearly with this penetration social media is not merely for kids and millennials.

Which brings me back to Digital. All these social media users have rapidly become accustomed to engaging with people online, at their convenience 24 x 365, and have found that it works for them. Increasing numbers expect to be able to interact with organisations in the same way, and in the case of businesses are actively preferring to do business with those which allow them to interact online - businesses which promote themselves, answer pre-sales questions, execute transactions, provide post-sales customer support etc. via social media channels are the essence of Digital. Being Digital goes way beyond having a brochureware website or an on-line shop, it means monitoring social channels and responding to prospects and customers promptly and openly. In a previous business we used to have a rule that the telephone was always answered within four rings and that anyone asking to speak to a director was immediately put through to one without question; being Digital means having similar responsiveness on-line. Consumers expect a response within five minutes, and if they have made their enquiry in public they expect the initial response to be made through the same public on-line channel where anyone and everyone can see it - being Digital sets new expectations of transparency. Obviously private communication still has its place, via email and direct messaging, and Digital businesses are careful to ensure that these channels are as easy for the customer to use as social media, and responded to with the same responsiveness and transparency as if the conversation were being held in public. Being ever so responsive in public and then slow and evasive in private fools nobody, the consumer’s expectation is the same whichever communication channel is used and they will tell the world if they’re disappointed.

There will be many business people reading this column; accountants, lawyers, CSPs etc., who will say that the nature of their business relationships with clients means that online engagement and social media are not suitable for them. Those businesses which take that attitude are missing the point and will suffer, probably to the extent that they go out of business - the point is that the Digital “revolution” is a consumer choice whether businesses like it or not, and consumers will vote with their wallets. Even business to business suppliers will find they are not immune, every purchasing decision in business is taken by people. Businesses which cannot find ways to engage with consumers online using the channels of the consumer’s choice will be left behind, so those which have more complex relationships with their clients will need to employ some lateral thinking about how they enable their customers to engage online, for if they don’t then their competitors surely will.

This Digital “revolution” has largely come about over the past six years, and leading organisations from all sectors have climbed on board - retailers, carriers, manufacturers, service providers, charities, police, government, public transport - wherever you look online there are examples of the effective exploitation of Digital. There are however many more examples of organisations which have tried but really don’t get it, their attempts at online engagement have simply brought them into disrepute because responsiveness and transparency are not in their cultures; changing organisational culture is difficult but it is also necessary because the culture of society is changing.

Which brings me back to social change. Social media has reconnected me to many people, scattered across the globe, whom I lost contact with decades ago. It has also connected me to many new acquaintances, across the world and at home on the Isle of Man. The latter seems contrary - why would people who are living a few miles apart and who could easily meet in the flesh develop online relationships? The answer must lie in the ease of use, immediacy and transparency of social media, it fills a gap by making it easier to interact with other people, at least on a superficial level. In doing so it is having a profound effect on society at a local level, connecting people who otherwise would not be connected, and establishing bonds, albeit weak, between many more members of a community than would have existed otherwise. Contrary to expectation social media is not fragmenting communities as a result of people spending more time closeted with their computers communicating outside their immediate locality, instead it is introducing more members of a locality to each other, reducing anonymity and reinforcing the sense of community engendered by having a shared locality in common and facing the issues particular to the local community.

The most dramatic example of this consolidation of community is probably found with the police and the Isle of Man Police’s use of social media is an outstanding demonstration. Those forces which have made effective use of social media to engage with their constituents have transformed themselves from being mistrusted and reviled by many in the community as anonymous symbols of oppressive state authority into being valued, respected and individually recognised servants of the people. Not all police forces have succeeded in their attempts to adopt social media, but for those which have  there has been a wholly remarkable transformation in the way they are perceived by the public.

What a difference six years has made, but the Digital revolution has only just started. The vast majority of organisations are still either disengaged completely, or are stumbling around ineffectively on social media, and as a consequence are losing ground to the new leaders. The second half of this decade will see the revolution accelerating, and the leaders gaining further advantage. Other than statutory monopolies those organisations which fail to crack the Digital problem by the end of the decade will die, shunned by a society which has moved on and by consumers who now expect to call the tune instead of putting up with what’s on offer.