A question on the Birmingham Post discussion group on LinkedIn has got my mind whirring. The question asked ‘Do you find it difficult communicating the usefulness of tools like LinkedIn?’
I think that the key here is to actually step away from the social media/web 2.0 table for a second and also park the apparent usefulness/benefits to one side too.
I see LinkedIn and alike as tools – a means to achieve an end – so I believe that the initial focus needs to be on those end objectives. As a crass example, if you’re renovating a house, you decide what you want to do before heading to the DIY store – you wouldn’t first head to B&Q, buy a load of tools and then decide what to do with them.
Business or other organisational objectives are the best opening gambit as they’re largely time immemorial, widely understood by the management population – and are what people actually need/want to achieve. Try this for size:
Q1) Do you want to increase sales by reaching new customers?
Answer – Yes.
Response – You could achieve this with x, y or z tools.
Q2) Do you want to use LinkedIn, it’s great for networking?
Answer – Ummm, excuse me?
Now, for sure, that is a little contrived – but all the same, the business objective-led approach is more compelling. There’s no strange technical terms or names, just straightforward business speak that you wouldn’t say no to.
There are so many business objectives that social media tools could be means to help achieve, not just the marketing-oriented ones that are most talked about. However, I believe that the mass adoption of these new tools can only happen if we initially put the tools back in the box and focus on the business objectives people need to achieve first.
Lead by business needs, not technology tools.
First thing, I don’t much disagree with anything you’ve said but I have a couple of thoughts to throw in there:
It’s very early days for online services such as LinkedIn – we still need to understand, and then get a feel for, what it is these tools can do. Then when there’s a business need we can decide which are the most appropriate.
I take the point about Q1 being more compelling, but my answer to Q2 might easily be – ooh, I need to do more networking so yes, I’ll use LinkedIn.
Also, I reckon there should be a shift from looking at the tool to looking at the poeple on the other end of it. LinkedIn (and others) deliver people. Ok, so the orig question was coming from a certain viewpoint, but it’d be much easier to explain LinkedIn’s potential usefulness by communicating about the audience and opportunities it offers instead.
Thanks for popping by. Agreed we don’t quite know what these tools are good for until we’ve worked out what they can do. However, all the same, the main objectives of business are probably not going to be shaped by technology – did the dot com boom really change what companies want to achieve? E.g. A web-based ’store’ is still a means to sell to customers, with the over-riding objective still to increase sales.
Yes, you might decided you need to network more – but ‘networking’ is itself only a means to an end to achieve an objective. You’re also a guru of social media in this city, so you have a natural propensity to explore these things! Confronted with a boardroom scenario however, a series of ‘fad’ sounding words and a lot of “potential” and “maybes” probably isn’t going to win much support. (Unless you have that unfortunate management-by-buzzword situation!)
To bring more people to the table, I think we need to talk their language – and their objectives. Then based on those objectives, analyse the potential of the tools available. Then the boardroom folk will have a more easily digestible “Achieve this objective via this means”.