SOCCNX 8 Invades Boston And I will be Speaking on Single Malt Vs. Blended

I expect a few vendors to order Magic 8-Balls (US people know what is, for everyone else see this page)

For those who do not know, Social Connections (SOCCNX) has been running across Europe for the last few years and providing a different type of event. Not as much of a user group as an affinity group for people that want to be social and collaborative. The dates are April 16-17, 2015 in Boston. Register to attend if you have not already.

Ideally it represents IBM Connections and some derivative topics but also hits on user adoption, employee engagement and in my case, Single Malt vs. Blended.

Yes, I, along with a few other IBM Champions, IBMers and friends, will be presenting on a slightly different topic from last time, the official title is:

 "Single Malt vs. Blended - The Email vs. Status Update Game"

Based on the description someone submitted, I will be discussing the following:

In a perfect world, we would not be using email. Everyone would just leave status updates around like cigarette butts. Sorry, bad image? Now imagine that the 182.9 BILLION emails sent a day are in your social media status update “drawer”. Ick is right. So if Email is so bad for us, why do we use it? Shouldn’t we be doing something better with our lives? Listen not to just facts and numbers, but ways in which you can limit the abuse of email and free up more time in your day to get work done. Do not try this game at a bar, it will be very expensive.

LOCATION: Auditorium 1DATE: April 16, 2015TIME: 2:05 pm - 2:35 pm
Whether or not you think email, or status updates should win, the point was that we have a problem and we need to manage this now before it is too late.
This session has not yet been sponsored by a specific Scotch or Whisky, so if you work at a spirits company, or know someone that does, and wish to help brand this session, please let me know.

Have we shared ourselves into Silos?

As I look out across my 30 column wide Tweetdeck app it dawned on me that it has started again.

I am pondering when did we get back to this point. Not sure it can be nailed down to one specific inflection point.

Once upon a time there was a monolithic world of business and it was a top down approach of management over employees. Information was on an as need basis or a "pay grade level" basis. However you view it, or heard about it, it existed. It sucked!

But not to everyone, and not so obviously. Many people were happy to go on with their work lives as drones in the corporate world. Some people wanted a better way and nothing really provided a way out.

Along came the PC revolution and networks, people could share information and the work world seemed a little less monolithic. Maybe we were on the cusp of something at that time, maybe we weren't. The hope and promise was there, even if the technology was not quite there. Although for the time it was pretty damn near incredible.

And then we found the commercialized Internet in 95 when it was opened up for us outsiders to become our babysitter, how-to manual, gripe board, chat board, equipment drivers locator and a far cheaper way to stay connected to our friends and the people we love. Unfortunately it also helped us stay connected to work.

Openness was everywhere, and still is, but it came with a price then and now. Join me, login here, register with us, become a member, and more yellow brick roads to what we thought was more sharing and socializing all popped up.

If you didn't mind the mini-silos, you were fine.

I minded then, I still do. Evidently while I am not unique, I represent a smaller percentage, and definitely of Americans, that want to share more with people.  OK, maybe not everything, but still...

On average, 24 percent of the world says they share “most or everything” that they do. But only 15 percent of Americans admitted to sharing nearly everything online. - Mary Meeker, 2013 Internet Trends Report

I am very against silos, in business, in religion, in schools, and in life in general. I may not like, or agree with everyone, but we are all here for each other to work our way through the maze of life.

There is an app for everything and nothing. Probably the most interconnected app for people is Facebook or Twitter. Both provide connections to people and their thoughts but still the people using either app is inconsistent. I have friends who use none of these, one of these or all of these forcing me to monitor many places, if I care enough. In time new shortcut apps popup that help, but in some ways we are breaking into more pieces than we ever did before.

There are niche of niche products, discussions, even zip codes or buildings have the exclusive of exclusive. And for what purpose? So we can be separated and divided further.

You say, "No, you got it all wrong! It's customization, personalization down to every whim you have or search you perform. We live in the ultimate open ended world, not a silo."

I see that side as well.

Really.

I do.

People always had outlets, work, sports, pubs, friends, family, but now everyone else knows about it and likes you more, or less, depending on the things you post and join. Want a new car or house but don't want neighbors to know, good luck keeping it form them if they follow you.

It's all good in the end, let's just be careful out there.

Pricing is not Social

It seems of late that a number of companies are very public, very social, very internet and web, yet very private about pricing.

What is it about price that makes companies hide behind their BS captcha's that are the "send us your information and we will get back to you with a quote" type?

On one hand, marketing says we need leads, services says each customer is different we can't possibly price it properly. On the other hand, we as a company want to be open, honest and above board with our customers.

Which are you? Which is it? Naturally there is a difference between a license MSRP and a services need but one might think these companies are safe guarding gold the way they act about their price.

If you worry about price, then you have no concept of the sales process. If you do your job correctly, then price, unless you are WAY OUT THERE, is rarely an issue.

Are you afraid your competition will find out? Hello 1950, what is this the Cold War? Your competition knows what you charge or how you bill, maybe not exactly but roughly.

Numerous examples exist, pick almost any company offering products online, not retail, but even there you get that "price available when in your cart" BS. I know, there are legal reasons to do that but still, that is just lame.

In my view this comes down to a silo mentality versus an open collaborative mentality. The open collaborative side does not worry about letting you know the price because their honesty is their integrity. If price really matters to you above all else, then they probably do not want you as a customer anyway.

The silo company has too many levels of "insert some euphemism" to be open and honest with anyone because in their world of CYA it is all about being safe, sound and hold back something from the customer. Old time sales tactic, make them ask me how much feels so great to me to be in control. Ugh. The reality is the power is not yours, by withholding the price, it is mine by ignoring you entirely.


Could social be leveraged to provide a more fluid pricing, similar to how much a Coke would cost in the winter versus the summer? Yes of course. While that may not be fair in theory, it is happening already, mostly because of analytics and testing of theories based on the raw data you and I provide in credit card receipts and online surfing as well as rewards cards.

Do we notice or care? Perhaps. But if we never knew the price of anything at a store would we still frequent it? Probably not, and your company website is really not any different.

Apathy or Retribution - Silo's Part 3

Continuing on with previous posts about Silos and being an ACE or an AS we now stop to think about some reasons for the middle ground people.

The two extremes, one side uses everything and shares like beer on tap overflowing a glass and the other shares nothing and could care less. They both work in their own way and should be respected for they have made a decision.
Most of the world however, or 95% of it, if I can warp an old statistics class idea, is in the middle. Not committing to do or not to do or even try. Yoda would not be pleased. Mostly they are paralyzed by the fear of retribution should they go up against something or someone they do not believe in or trust. they may also be stuck in the land of apathy, uncaring too much of the information because it does not touch their little world (mini fiefdoms).

So now that you got here, how do you get these people to go to the other side without paying the ferryman?

 In a post from October, I wrote this:

Stop Using the F, S and C words to Explain Connections

What I did not touch on was the need for people to belong and feel connected to others emotionally which is why they may use Facebook or Linkedin. That emotional need does not exist in business for most people. It's their job and unless they are 100% into their job and company the same need isn't there, thus the apathy. And also they rightly presume this may be used against them, thus the retribution.

Now compare this to a person who blogs about the issues within an educational organization who is trying to reach out to people who are affected by the decisions and yet the same people do not want to speak out or comment for fear of retribution by the community at large.

Now how do you as a sales person help your vendor sell their social business solution into a company? We have seen installations get tossed aside because of lack of usage. We have read about solutions that served them well for years to be tossed for something new. We have even seen some people choose to turn off some options because they want to force employees to think differently, the cold turkey method.

Buy-in from employees comes when they see their leadership making the effort and leading the way and showing the benefits to the company which in turn benefits the employees, or it should. Only in this way can you stave off the apathetic and assuage the fear of retribution.
It is not an easy process to accomplish and  it takes time to spread this across, especially if your company has been full of Silos and fiefdoms for some time.