Learning and Technology

Which types of social media applications will help managers learn to communicate better? January 28, 2008

The next time you need to communicate, whether it is during a client visit or a trip to the coffee machine, take a close look at how people communicate around you. How well do words capture the essence of what you are seeing, now much will retain for future use? How much of the communication is verbal, and how much transpires through other “channels” of communication: sights, sounds, smell, touch and taste? How does technology (microphones, laptops, block notes and/or the coffee machine) enhance or distort communication? Which types of social media applications will help managers learn to communicate better?

One critical point is that communication isn’t neutral, nor can it be separated from “objective” reality. We inherently communicate more than the “facts”, for all communication has a purpose, a direction (one-to-one, one-to-many…), a structured content, and a function in the group, organization or community for which it’s targeted. This multiple facets of communication are continually reshaped by conversation between customers, employees and managers to create new forms of the original message. In this light, communication is never just a simple exchange of information, but is tied to production of experiences that define the realities of our work and our work place.

If communication flows through different channels, it also can be envisioned as distinct processes that meet varying needs in any organization. Normative processes are used to communicate the formal organizational procedures: information is communicated from the top of the organization down, the objectives of organizational communication are meant to be clear, precise and replicable. Descriptive processes on the other hand are used to communicate business practices in an attempt to understand how work actually gets done, the objectives of descriptive communication is to understand dissonance, obstacles, and the flexibility needed to meet organizational goals. Finally, social processes are used within the organization to negotiate the meaning of work (why do we come to work each day? why should we purchase this product or service?); they tend to be informal, fuzzy, and horizontal to meet individual needs of identity, adherence, and vision.

Management consultants have long argued that organizations should consciously model communication processes to align with organizational strategy. Specialists in social media will help their clients focus on key questions of how IT can help managers learn to communicate better in specific organizational contexts and visions:

• Can improving communication channels enhance corporate identify or inversely is improving communication dependent upon clarifying corporate strategy?
• Does the quality of communication depend on how the business community is structured, or can it be targeted independently for improvement to reach organizational objectives?
• Should communication processes be modeled from the top-down or should they be mapped from the bottom-up?
• In what conditions can social media help managers learn to communicate more effectively?

Which forms of social media can best be leveraged for different types of professional audiences? There is panoply of applications today; blogs, wikis, shared workspaces, search, social networks, that have potential uses in professional applications. Three questions can help determine the potential value proposition of a specific technology. To begin with, what are the benefits that the organization hopes to reap from implementing the application (collaboration, innovation, support for decision making, archiving and retrieval)? Next, what type of community is the organization trying to support and/or develop (closely knit with frequent interaction? loosely knit with few spontaneous contacts? potential contacts who share similar interests…?). Finally, what products (or forms of service) does the organization hope to foster (document sharing? information retrieval? expertise? opinions or suggestions?). Social media, like other forms of information technology, has no value in itself, but in applying it to specific objectives, interactions and communities

Specific forms of social media add value in specific contexts