Chuck and Vince drop the truth

For the longest time, the citizens of Toronto had to go through back hoops to get rid of their electronic waste. Now suddenly we can just take our e-waste to the curb on trash day. And everybody in Toronto knows this, thanks to Chuck and Vince.

This government ad is a great example of how to get a message out quick and cheap to a target audience:

1. Keep the message focused. 
2. Have your creative people create compelling content that delivers a focused message.
3. Management's job is to hire the best creative people to do 1 + 2, and prevent anything from interfering with their work.

Sounds simple right? Well if it is that easy, why do most government ads make me want to vote for the opposition? Let's see what Chuck and Vince did differently:

The simple message is that the City of Toronto wants my e-waste. The humour made the message more compelling, but that was because the humour was honest and effectively supported the message. When you are spinning something to promote an agenda, you are no longer compelling. And so much of government and corporate advertising is spinning an agenda.

The City of Toronto hired talent from Second City. Brilliant, these are world class improv comedians. They can take any idea and turn into magic, instantly. Management let talent do their stuff and didn't interfere. Honestly, does this look like an ad from any government body you know? Some manager took a risk, did not follow the safe route, fought off the sharks and let the talent deliver. 

Did it work? Well ask any Torontonian how to get rid of e-waste and you are likely to get the right answer. And the video is now spreading virally on YouTube. Those of you that can count might have observed that other ads have hits that are orders of magnitude greater than Chuck and Vince. True, but in fairness Chuck and Vince are two large guys with message about waste disposal while the young sexy couple in this condom ad with 6 million plus hits is, well, it's just not a fair comparison.  But just like Chuck and Vince, this talent delivers a simple message with some very compelling content.

Social Media has a way of pushing the compelling content to the top. And nothing is more compelling than a simple truth.

A Tale of Two Hockey Teams

I am a Hockey Dad. My two sons, who go by the names Theo and Zach in the blogosphere, play competitive hockey in the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL). With some sports leagues you are sent a schedule at the beginning of the season and you are good to go. Not so with the GTHL. The schedule is only published about 2 weeks into the future. And there is no such thing as a home rink where you would play half your games, we  play all over Toronto and its suburbs. Oh, and games may be rescheduled, practices moved, exhibition games and tournaments added etc.

Net-net, scheduling  is dynamic and complex. Effective communication amongst coaches and parents is critical. This a tale of two hockey teams, and how they communicate to make sure their players make it to the rink on time.

Theo's team uses email for 100% of team communication. I receive about 3 emails a week from the team manager on schedule updates and other team business such as payments, discussion on tournament participation, fundraising etc. I am asked to confirm attendance also by email.  Emails are also exchanged between parents as we coordinate car pools, play days and exchange contact info. To keep track I religiously enter events into my calendar and parents contact info into my contacts. Invariably both I and other parents have missed an update and turned up at the rink at the wrong time at least once. Its a lot of work for the manager, the coaches and all the parents, but it gets the job done.

Zach's team uses a Social Media tool called TeamSnap to manage all team business. A schedule is maintained, parents mark attendance for games and practices, each player has a profile with all their contact info, payments are managed, photos are securely shared and I could name another hundred great capabilities. Killer features include an RSS feed, Outlook calendar synchronization and an iPhone app. It is simple for the manager, coaches and parents to stay on top of the schedule and team business.

So which communication solution would you prefer if you were the manager or a parent? Now if you collaborate on a dynamic and complex project in the workplace would you still choose email as your primary communication channel over social media collaboration tools?

Social Media in the Workplace? You bet!

There is healthy debate about the appropriateness of Social Media in the workplace. Many skeptics perceive Social Media as a diversion for youth and young adults, a modern channel for chit chat with little substance. They may consider Social Media as part of their marketing strategies for reaching targeted demographics, but not a communication medium suitable for the seriousness of work. 

Historical parallels to the original web may be drawn.  Back in the heyday of client/server software the suggestion of a browser client for a corporate application was often met with scorn. The Mosaic browser was the application for surfing the World Wide Web where young people checked their stocks, visited Star Trek pages or worse. The Mosaic browser was not appropriate for the viewing of corporate data.

Yet the browser as a front end to an n-tier architecture quickly became the standard for IT infrastructures. People soon did serious work and engaged in commercial transactions using a browser.  This was driven by the significant efficiencies in developing applications based on n-tier architectures and the productivity gains achieved by their users.

The history of business is written by those who adopted technology and processes that increased productivity. The adoption of Social Media in the workplace will be primarily driven by the productivity gains achieved. The preferences of a younger generation, the cool or wow factors, and the freshness of this new medium matter little.

And how can Social Media increase productivity? By demonstrating the following gains beyond dispute:

1. Increasing the speed and quality at which knowledge is captured. 
2. Reducing the time to find knowledge and to deliver value.
3.  Increasing the capabilities of teams to deliver value primarily by leveraging knowledge.

Corporate knowledge is out there. Unfortunately it is often in the heads of employees, partners and customers, or perhaps on their respective laptops, but wherever it may be, it is not somewhere that is easy to find or leverage. Companies must deliver value by effectively managing complexity and coordinating the activities of distributed teams. In a competitive environment the team that can do this faster and more efficiently will win. Social Media properly deployed and employed in the workplace can significantly increase productivity by overcoming these challenges.

In upcoming blog posts I will build the case for Social Media in the workplace on the basis of increased productivity.