Embrace, Educate and Communicate

I posted yesterday that I’m in FL for the IT Gartner Symposium and I am back in my room after the kick off and the opening address.  There is a lot here and I’m excited about the rest of what I’ll be expereinceing.  Here are some highlights.

Realizing that this is a “Jets Blog” with social media undertones, I wanted to let you know that the major theme of the conference is keeping costs down during this economical social downturn, but one topic that kept coming up was the use of Social Media in your organization.

I work for a healthcare company and protecting PHI is of the utmost importance, but I started to think about how controlling social media in a sports organization has become a challenge.  For those of you that have been following the sports world’s opinion on this topic, you know that our New York Jets EMBRACE social media and organizations such as the Miami Dolphins BAN it.

One of the speakers made a great point and said,:

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“You can put a ban and systems in place to restrict the use internally, but people will find a way.  Most of the users that use Facebook and Twitter are doing so from their personal cell phones.”

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Instead of putting restrictions on these technologies, organizations should educate and put in a formal social media strategy in place.

The new in is TRANSPARENCY.  I’ve been reading Chris Brogran’s “Trust Agents” and he states the same exact thing.  We now live in a world where EVERYTHING we do is traceable on the Internet.  We can no longer HIDE who we are, so if we do something unethical, people will eventually find us out.

I think this is one of the major factors why enterprise cultures can take a toll on individuals.  People want to feel trusted and be treated like responsible adults.  I wouldn’t tweet or post something to facebook I wouldn’t say in person or in an email.

Let’s go back to the New York Jets.  When I was in Jets Camp at Cortland NY this past Summer, I had a chance to have a conversation with Jerricho Cotchery.  One of my questions to JCo was why he didn’t have a twitter account.  He noted that it didn’t interest him and that he’ll let the pros like Kerry Rhodes handle that.  I asked him if he was afraid of saying something that could bite him since it’s under the microscope and he stated that it should be treated the same way you handle the media, the public and every aspect of your life.

JCo made my point for me and I just saw it said again at this conference:  Social Media is an extension of the existing communications already in your life.  Organizations need to leverage social media and listen to the Groundswell.  It’s not going away, and those companies that continue to ban it will be left in the dust.

Embrace, Educate, and then Communicate!