Its critical that fear shouldn't prevail

Critical success factors for making social media work
The task for the speakers this afternoon was to examine what crucial factors should be considered by an organisation looking for a successful social media implementation. The panel moderated by Adriana Lukas, founder of Big Blog Company saw contributions from Chris Shaw, global practice director, Factiva insight, Dow Jones Enterprise media, the world renowned news and financial information outfit, Suraj Kika, CEO Jadu, an enterprise content management software house specialising in local government implementations, Claire Wozencroft, business development manager at C2B2, social media and web-portal experts, accompanying them was Remco Verheul the CTO of NewsGator, a leader in RSS technology.
A dedicated panel debate ensued, it started with Lukas stating that social computing can often mean different things to different people, both in terms of the results as well as the expectations, as the session drew on it was apparent that the rest of the panel could vouch for this with their own experiences.
“From a technical point of view it is better to look at current Internet technology and see how it can be translated into use for companies”. Said Lukas “My interest is selling to me as the user, how does it help, do my job better, connect with others?” she asked “What needs to also be taken into account isn’t just the user in the equation, as after all people have actually pointed out to me earlier, that business leaders are also trying to run a business, how does that factor in to the equation?”
Sharing his clients fears, and not afraid to point out that a Dow Jones customer will often be a corporate behemoth. Chris Shaw said, “ Our customers are corporates and they are sometimes terrified of secrets and opinions bleeding out of the building. We try to allow them to measure the type and flow of content, so they at least know what is going on with their user-base”
Echoing this sense of fear that businesses can suffer from, Claire Wozencroft had this to add, “The key thing to us is power – control to our clients – to say who can edit and manage them, that the staff onboard understand and learn the processes.” But before the situation sounds all negative Wozencroft was quick to point out that sometimes it was the staff who can often provide ideas to problems, organisations need interest and willing.
Suraj Kika has also noted the “fear factor” is prevalent in his companies specialist client base, local authorities and government. It is, as he pointed out “the factor that will determine if users, use – or not”. He gave an example of the culture in local government that doesn’t exactly nurture the idea that staff should be publishing content, saying, “We are trying to help users overcome their fear of publishing content internally.” He gave an example of how some local government departments insist on staff having sign off before sending a letter out.
Thereafter the topics moved to discuss the social aspects of each other’s respective technologies, as well as their preferred methods of communication. Wozencroft waxed lyrical about how much of a convert she has become, although it wasn’t as a permanent replacement to face to face meetings, she said “Although I’ve never been into social networking sites, I have been into traditional networking, like a social butterfly. However using the C2B2 technology has made it easier to communicate with colleagues, when on the road and working from home. The point is this is a huge change for me, previously I never would have used or relied on it, it won’t replace one to one, but will change the business landscape.