My First 'Social Letter'

1. The 'Social Letter' will only come out once per month
2. If after reading it you don’t believe there is any value in it, just unsubscribe at any time
3. And I will share just 3 topics with 3 tips each month around my own learning in Social Media and Social Learning

Anything in this 'Social Letter' is based on my own personal opinion and has been developed through my own research and daily experiences.

This month my 3 topics are;

Social Language

Personal Exposure

Social Tools

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Social Language

Michael, do you agree that the Internet appears to have found its niche? Social Networking has exploded across it like a tsunami and instead of sinking we have all taken to our boats and are exploring the high seas to see what effect it will have on our daily personal and business lives. Why is it then that I still hear such outdated language via email, blogs, press etc?  Why is our language not changing or are we just afraid of letting our guard down?  Here in the UK I believe it is going to be particularly difficult for us to speak in a different (social) language, we just seem to be afraid of being more social in our discussions.  A ‘Social Language’ that is more engaging, more holistic, more inviting and asking both clients and friends to join the discussion.

My 3 tips for a new Social Language are:

1. Stop promoting yourself or your business (people do not like being sold to on Social Media)
2. Start listening and communicating
3. Become more engaging by asking great questions and sharing views

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Personal Exposure

Are you worried Michael about your own personal exposure on Social Networks?  Let’s turn the clock forward, let’s say to 2020.  A lot of teenagers will be well out of University, looking for jobs.  Guess what their employers will be looking at?  Their Social Network footprint and their language in those networks.  There is no better way to get to know a person, then to look at their Social Networking sites and see what they have been up to.

Sure lots of students will be trying to hide their profiles from their employers with the fear of being ridiculed for the games they play, their chats with their friends, the apps they use, the places they check-in to and much more.  Now, it's not that difficult to learn about someone,  so much of what you say or do on Social Networks is indexed by Google.  Good luck to those students who will be trying to hide 10 years of social media exposure! This infographic (to download click the link) illustrates nicely the case for transparency versus the case for anonymity.

I know you are happy Michael for your business profile to be in the social domain, but what about your personal profile?  Why do we say, I want to keep my private life separate from my business life?  I don’t want people to know that much about me, but very happy to share what I do for my work, because I could earn from that.

Well I have some news for you.  People buy people first and when we are in a business lunch or networking event and after we finished talking about what we do for a living, we start asking questions like...where do you live?...where are you going on holiday?...how many kids do you have?...what sports do you follow?...who do you support?...and so on.

I think you are probably getting my message, we all need to start getting used to the idea that you need to be more personal on social networks and share something about yourself.

My 3 tips for creating Personal Exposure are:

1. Make your profile open, so that anyone can find you on Social Networks and can get to know you
2. Consider the view that everyone is a personal contact, don't consider them to be different, just because you met them in the workplace
3. Be careful to judge people that blend their personal and business lives (this is done regularly on Twitter)

By the way here is a great blog post by Social Media Examiner; http://bit.ly/mGyaCU

Its called Facebook 101 for Business: Your Complete Guide.  Some great learning in there for you and how to develop a more personal relationship with everyone!

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Social Tools

Certainly in my research and learning, I have come across so many different sites, tools and apps that can help me in my social media endeavours.  So, Michael I decided to share a couple of tools with you, that help me keep track of all of these.

The first one is Google Bookmarks.  A great way to have all your bookmarks available on the Internet (Or do we now say the Cloud?).  I found that having these in the 'Cloud' is really beneficial.  You can also install a plug-in to your browser, which then allows you to quickly add them when you are on a site that you need to bookmark.  You can also keep bookmarks organised by list for easy retrieval.

Start creating your bookmarks here: https://www.google.com/bookmarks.

The other tool I use is www.oneforty.com.  Here I can record all the different Social Media tools I use, currently I use 58 different ones, whether through the web, desktop or mobile.  They have a library of all the different tools and its a great way to learn about what they can do for you and keep track of all the different ones you have signed up to.  I have looked at many other tools too but these two for me have made life a lot simpler.  Plus you can share it with your colleagues too.

My 3 tips for managing Social Media Tools are:

1. Save all your bookmarks inside Google Bookmarks, for easy sharing or retrieval.  And get the plug-in for your browser.
2. Create a spreadsheet on your personal computer and record all the urls, usernames and passwords and make the sheet password protected.
3. Use a tool like oneforty to record all the tools you use and also find other tools.

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For next month I have in mind to cover the following 3 topics:

Are you ready to go back to school?

Does using video to teach your colleagues work?

Do you really understand Social Media?

Michael, if you have time to discuss this 'Social Letter', ask more questions and engage with me, please stop by on www.facebook.com/stayingaliveuk Let me know if I met my promises and any suggestions on how could I make it even greater for you next time?

Have a great month and I hope to catch up with some of you either face to face or in those amazing social networks.

Michael

More about me!

Is the Email Monkey Male or Female?

After a few years absence from the email newsletter scene, I decided to venture out and try it again.  I used to be with constant contact, but having seen better alternatives, I decided to give MailChimp a go. I had used them previously for a small list and now that I have changed direction in my business it was time to email a bigger list.

I have spent some time building my list of trusted contacts on LinkedIn, so I thought why not start with them as a base and build from there.  After all most of them do know me and if I ask nicely, maybe they will just stay 'opted-in' to my list.

I got down to drafting my email and this time I had to refrain from selling or promoting what I can do for them.  So thinking of writing something that would get them to genuinely believe me and that I wanted to have their permission before they would receive the first newsletter.

So an opt-out email was the plan and making it clear that I only wanted to send them an email in the future with information they could use, free of charge and no selling.  Tough one really because sending someone an email, they automatically think you are selling to them.  I think we have just been conditioned this way.  I really did not want to do this, my aim is to give something away for free to people who have taken the trouble to link or follow me.

If you wish to have a read of it by all means check it out here:  http://bit.ly/k78Mug

I was reasonably pleased with it. I know you can always improve it, ask some others to proofread it, but I decided it was good enough to get some feedback.

Oh boy, feedback I got indeed!  But not what I had expected.  I got unsubscribes, plenty of them, but that’s what I wanted, so that was ok.  I sent emails out to 663 people and I got 50 unsubscribes.  Fantastic, at least people were reading my email and they responded.  It means 613 did not unsubscribe yet!

What I had not expected was to receive written feedback as well and in some cases great feedback.  So instead of paraphrasing it, here are some of them for you to read for yourself;

Hi Michael…I can hear the Bee Gees song in my head ! Happy to receive your newsletter..I use Linkedin, Twitter, Google alerts and my website….not Facebook so much.  Mark

Like the idea! Nice way to start it as well by offering people the opt out. Will keenly keep an eye out for your first one. Jack

I *love* this approach! I’ve been toying with whether I should send an e-mail out to my user base, but am a very strong believer in “permission marketing”.

This is a wonderful approach. Do you mind if I S.W.I.P.E it? Richard

Yes, go for it!  Look forward to receiving your next newsletter. David

Certainly, I will look forward to your updates etc. Karen

See below - high praise indeed coming from Jeremy, somebody who I consider a leader in our field! If you’re not reading his blog – go read it now! Richard

Brilliantly done! Jeremy

I just wanted to drop you a quick line to say I think your newsletter is great. As a graphic design agency, helping businesses with newsletters is something we do pretty regularly - I found yours warm and engaging while still being professional and informative. It's obvious that you do this for a living! Liz

That was delightful email,and yes permission granted. Dev

I'm intrigued, count me in. Rene

Thanks - I really appreciate the fact that you've asked, and I'm happy to hear what you have to say. Richard

No problem with you contacting me in the future. Ken

Sounds good right?  Well what I had not expected was this email from the Monkey!

We want to make you aware that that your campaign from your account with the username stayingaliveuk  generated an unsubscribe rate of 3.05%.  At this point this is just a notification of the activity occurring on your campaign.  Your account is still active but we want to make you aware that we will continue to watch this campaign and may send additional warnings.  As an ESP, we’re required to enforce an unsubscribe rate of 1% or less (1.01% is considered to be over the limit). When this is exceeded, ISPs and SpamCop organizations begin to question the integrity of your list which can cause blacklisting or blocks for both your domains and MailChimp domains and IP addresses. It can also indicate there are readers on the list who do not want to receive your content and were not expecting to receive it.  If the unsubscribe activity continues and exceeds the 1% limit this can lead to account suspension and further investigation into the matter by our compliance team.  At this time we want to make you aware of the activity and provide some steps to help reduce the issue in the future.

Not so great then after all!

There I was thinking carefully about not spamming people and asking them for permission and BOOM, I got my wrists slapped by the email monkey!  I was a bit concerned to say the least.  Thankfully they have confirmed that my account is still active, so I will be able to send my first newsletter out as planned very soon!  So if you are planning a new newsletter to a new audience, using a new email tool, be careful!

Yammer Social Learning

I copied this thread from Jane Hart’s Social Learning Community http://c4lpt.co.uk/community and I felt it made such interesting reading and illustrates the debate that is taking place in organisations today about Social Media, Social Learning and how to embrace and engage these technologies.

Elliot R

My organization is just entering the informal learning and social media discussion. My position is that both topics should be addressed in the same conversation. This statement says it for me: "Social learning/media is simply informal learning facilitated by technology." Does anyone have data to support this? I have lots of excellent articles, and Jane's reference to this

http://www.danpontefract.com/?p=847 really helped. I am familiar with the 70/30/10 model as well. Anything else?

Charles J: Elliot, not to be pedantic, but social media, social learning and informal learning do describe different things. Unfortunately it's not black-and-white.

Social media is just that. Media that supports social interaction. In it's raw state in our market-driven world social media is usually as much focused on advertising as on learning.

Social learning is what I'd term 'learning through others'. Where interaction with others (colleagues, like-minded folk, our boss, people we meet on the street or in virtual environments like this) leads to new ideas and new behaviours. There is a school of thought that ALL learning is social. My view is that quite a lot is, and it's increasing with the proliferation of technologies, but there is some learning that is deeply personal and self-directed.

The 'informal' term is rather a catch-all. It's also slightly misleading as it can be taken as 'haphazard' and serendipitous. Some informal learning may be that, but a lot isn't. Informal learning is all learning that is not directed in a structured way. It can be social or it can be isolated learning (where you learn through practice, for instance). It may be accidental, but it's more likely to be highly directed.

Harold Jarche separates learning into a set of categories: directed/self-directed/undirected with learners (or workers) being dependent learners, independent learners or interdependent learners depending upon particular context. Jane has pulled this into a structure here http://bit.ly/eOQwyX that you may find useful. It's not something to show business managers, but it may help clarify for people who have some experience and expertise with how people learn.

The 70:20:10 model is another framework for categorising learning - with the '70' describing learning through experience and practice, the '20' describing learning through others, and the '10' describing formal, directed learning. Again, unfortunately, some specific learning experiences are likely to 'bleed' across categories.... nothing is black-and-white.

Charles J: I should have said that informal learning is 'more likely to be highly directed BY THE LEARNER' ....

Charles J: Good catch, Nic! I shouldn't have used 'unfortunately', or should at least have qualified it with "unfortunately for people who want to put things in nice neat rows"..... I can't count the number of times I've been challenged on the 70:20:10 split by people saying that 'it won't work that way in my organisation, we need to do 'x' amount of formal development... etc'.

The point is that all of these frameworks and categories are intended to act as useful tools, not recipes.

Nic L: Charles. Thanks for a very helpful differentiation of the terms. There is currently lots of confusion and overlap of use of them even amongst those who truly "get" the learning revolution.

I would take issue with a single word in your post! "Unfortunately" in your description of the 70:20:10 model suggests that we ought to be able to categorise every element of learning and behaviour. You then go on to say nothing is black and white! I think we have to understand that as scientists and analysts and conceptualisers of one type or another there are no hard line differentiations in human behaviour - it is a continuum.

One of the difficulties we face as the L&D fraternity is to explain clearly to those with whom we seek to collaborate what we are all about. Using hard definitions and differentiations provides some insight but also again confuses the reality. There is a huge diversity to the way we learn and that the way forward is to recognise the centrality of the "learner" and to meet his/her needs by fostering whatever media, mechanisms and structures that will make the process effective. Drawing lines on the continuum invites the taking up of standpoints that mask the incredible breadth of the field in which we work. In doing so this risks the promotion of inappropriate or sub-optimal ways forward for the learner.

Jane H: Exactly! As Harold has articulated clearly here, there are no cookie-cutter solutions http://internettime.posterous.com/

David S: Charles, your explanation of the differences in definitions is very helpful, thank you.

Is there is a distinction to be made between the private and public sectors in terms of both mindset and investment?

I work a lot in the public sector and many in L&D are still coming to terms with facilitating learning rather than instructing, never mind the use of technology. E-learning is in there but with its detractors. Initiating and integrating online CoPs are rare in my experience as most rely on intranets which are not the same thing.

Charles J: I don't see any difference between the needs and outputs in terms of mindset and investment for public and private sectors, David.

When it's boiled down everyone is focused on helping people do their best and work to their potential using the most effective and most efficient approaches available. I think it's irrelevant whether there's a profit motive behind the organisation's raison d'etre or not. For-profit and NFP organisations all want to get the best outcomes from their people.

However some of the levers that L&D and others in organisations can pull may be very different. For instance, for-profit organisations will respond to levers that are couched in terms of productivity and profitability. NFP and Govt. organisations will want the semantics to be presented differently - in terms of best value for the end user/customer/client/taxpayer and efficiencies.

So the routes to the end goal may be different, but the goal - helping to maximise workforce capability in the best way possible - will be the same.

Social and informal learning have a very important role to play in getting to the goal in every organisation whether it's a multinational for-profit, a small or medium-sized enterprise, a government department or a charitable trust.

David S: I absolutely agree that the goal is the same and on the importance of social and informal learning. I sense sometimes in public sector environments that there is a mystique about the methods and 'that's what others do'. It's a cultural resignation attitude.

Elliot R in reply to Charles J: Agreed. My recommendation to my team would be to use the term "social learning" v "social media" as the latter implies more of a marketing strategy via social technology.

However, I don't believe you can have social learning without technology. But, IMHO, you can have informal learning without technology. Would you agree that the potential use of technology is one factor that distinguishes social learning from informal learning?

Nic L: Elliot - I have to disagree with you! Social learning happens all the time - whenever people meet together to discuss and share. it is totally ubiquitous and at the root of our humanity. If we try to limit it to any kind of structured context we deny its power.

Elliot R: I think we are talking past each other as you are correct. I am referring to technology only as a potential enabler. My organization is trying to force informal learning into a formal learning category and measure it via social learning which I do not believe is a good use of time.

Gary B in reply to Nic L: Just curious, then is the learning different from the delivery method or are we in need of a different term that incorporates a larger more encompassing term - process -method?

Jane B: Hi Elliot (and how are you, by the way?) . I think your last comment here sums it up well. The idea that L&D can own, direct, and manage informal and social learning (and get credit for it) is causing lots of problems. They didn't own, direct, or manage that before, after all. We're just finally at a time when others are recognizing social learning as legitimate learning, and learners have tools and capabilities at their disposal to help them better get what they need, not just the content that is pushed to them. Agreed: Trying to force it into old paradigms is not a good use of anyone's time.

Nic L in reply to Gary B: Gary - for me the learning is the outcome which becomes visible in changed or improved performance at individual or organisation level. There are countless delivery methods - which are ways people address their needs and arrive at their learning.

Gary B in reply to Nic L: Nic, I agree with you that the "learning" is really the outcome that manifests in a variety of ways, but I'll extend your phrasing a bit further and suggest that the delivery is separate from the processing of the information that was delivered and maybe the whole "social media" "social learning" etc could multiple steps -- such as we use social media as the tool that results in social learning (I have no idea if we should name whatever intermediate processing takes place - probably not).

Elliot R: Gary, your comments echo my thoughts...social media as a POTENTIAL enabler towards social learning.

Nic L: Elliot and Gary - I agree with you both that the social media are potential enablers of learning - amongst many others. Social means when people talk to one another - so there are almost countless ways in which that happens. The social media present the L&D community with a fantastic new way to foster social interaction with a global reach which is focussed on learning. But the SoMe are not something we own in L&D - we just harness the vehicle to help people collaborate and learn. In situations where SoMe are not familiar it is an inappropriate way of pursuing our aims - and getting to a point where learning communities and CoP's will get involved via the SoMe requires sensitivity and a lot of energy to create an ambience that is confortable for learners.

Michael de Groot in reply to Nic L: Wow what a great discussion here. All really great stuff. The conversation here would make an excellent blog post. I will just add one small thing if I may. The days that organisations are carving up SoMe are numbered. See for me Social means it's owned by everyone and not just one department or one individual. I know it will take time for the penny to drop and we all like boundaries, which is the old military way of doing things. Over the next 12 -24 months (hopefully) it will be a battle for organisations to become more social, holistic and transparent. Those who get it will flourish. Others who don't will have frustrated employees. Am I making sense?

Facebook | What is showing up on your newsfeed or not....

This information is courtesy of Stephanie Perom, so please visit her Facebook and thank her if you wish.  http://www.facebook.com/sperom 

Have y

ou noticed that you are only seeing updates in your newsfeed from the same people lately? 

Have you also noticed that when you post things like status messages, photos and links, the same circle of people are commenting and everyone else seems to be ignoring you? 

Don't worry, everyone still loves you and nobody has intentionally blocked you. The problem is that a large chunk of your friend/fan list can't see anything you post and here's why: 

The "New Facebook" has a newsfeed setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you've recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile). So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa - you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!! 

HERE'S THE FIX: On the homepage click the "Most Recent" title on the right of the Newsfeed, then click on the drop down arrow beside it and select "Edit Options", click on "Show Posts From" and change the setting to "All Of Your Friends and Pages" (you can also access the "Edit Options" link at the very bottom of the facebook homepage on the right) Note: Business pages do not have a newsfeed however page owners should adjust the settings on their personal accounts. 

The good news is: now you can now view all of your friends and fans again. The bad news is: YOU ARE STILL INVISIBLE to a large portion of your list. You must get the word out to ALL of your friends and fans by sharing this with them.  You can also tweet about it, create a blog post or send out an email to your subscribers in hopes of reaching them all.

Statistics Show Social Media Is Bigger Than You Think | and it's out of date already...

Is Social Media a Fad or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution?  Welcome to the Social Media Revolution | watch this great video by Erik Qualman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng

Stats from Video (sources listed below by corresponding #)

1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
2. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
3. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
4. Years to Reach 50 millions Users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
5. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia (note that Facebook is now creeping up – recently announced 300 million users)
6. Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
7. comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
8. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
9. 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
10. % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
11. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
12. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the  population of Ireland, Norway, or Panama.  Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined.
13. 80% of Twitter usage is outside of Twitter…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
14. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
15. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
16. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
17. Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
18. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
19. 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
20. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
21. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
22. Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
23. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
24. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
25. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them
26. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
27. Only 14% trust advertisements
28. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
29. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
30. Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
31. 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
32. According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
33. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
34. In the near future we will no longer search for  products and services they will find us via social media
35. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
36. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
37. Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

mahalo.com

Discovered this fascinating website, where you can learn about lots of things that interest you | Very interesting, check it out!  www.mahalo.com | Enjoy! | At the same time I am checking out how posterous works!

There is an Elephant in the Room!

There is some amazing research out confirming that Elephants appreciate that they need to co-operate to achieve a result. Here is a brief exert from the report.

The Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) involved in the study had already been taught that pulling on a rope brought a platform towards them, and a food reward on that platform within reach.

But this apparatus, set up at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang province, presented them with a new twist on that simple task.

One rope was threaded all the way around a platform - like a belt through belt loops - so if one end was tugged, the rope simply slipped out and the platform did not budge.

But if two elephants each took an end of the rope and pulled, the platform moved and that could claim their treats.

"When we released one elephant before the other, they quickly learned to wait for their partner before they pulled the rope," Dr Plotnik told BBC News.

So here is the largest animal on the planet, who is already known for their social abilities, showing us how co-operation and working together as one, will get the job done.

Why is it then that our human nature favours the single endeavour and reward the single executive for their efforts, when clearly they could never have achieved it on their own. I am of course talking about the obscene pay rewards for bankers and indeed senior executives of global companies, who are being rewarded, as if they delivered the profits single handedly.

Now I appreciate that somewhere along the way, someone decided what a reasonable pay package should be for a senior executive and that set the standard, which continued to escalate to ridiculous amounts of money that do not make any real sense at all in this current new Millenium.

Who says that a senior executive has to earn a huge salary to compensate him or her for the stress and pressure of having the top job or even those who are one or two levels below the top job.

People at the very bottom of the organisation have exactly the same emotional stress as someone at the top of the organisation. In fact the higher up you get in an organisation it's not about what you know but more about how you manage people, because your stardom success is totally dependent on how the people below you perform. I would even go as far as saying that someone at the top of the organisation should get paid less and instead receive a performance related modest bonus based on results of the team he/she manages.

I think you get my point. Let's reward people who are truly responsible for delivering results on the frontline and motivate the executives by encouraging great leadership and management through a modest bonus incentive scheme.

The largest animal walking the planet realises how to share his/her success, let's learn from the natural world and take some tips from the Elephant!

Customer Service in Social Media

I am sharing with you my own personal experience of the impact of social media in customer service. Now my experience of conventional customer service was very poor, but via social media it was excellent.

Firstly a little bit of background.

I am a T-Mobile customer and have been a customer of theirs for about 6 years, when I decided to purchase my very first blackberry, when the Blackberry Pearl was released. I was with Orange ever since I became a mobile phone user, so it took a lot of convincing for me to move to another network.

The service I had received from Orange was superb.

Anyway I made the jump and that was it. I was equally impressed with T-Mobile's service and their agents did an excellent job. So it all worked out for me. I was a very late adopter in the Blackberry market, but felt with the smaller phone my wait was justified.

Now fast forward to September 2010 and for my Birthday I treated myself to an iPhone 4, and had an early contract upgrade, which was a real gift.

All seemed to be well and my first bill was a bit of a mess coming out of one contract and starting a new one. Anyway I decided to leave it for a few months and review it again to make sure all was well. I don't get paper bills, so I get a monthly text to let me know that the bill is ready online. I don't know about you but when I get that message I don't immediately jump online and check my bill so I ignored it for a few months. I did notice that although I am not a huge user, the bill appeared high so decided to investigate further.

I then discovered they had been overcharging me ever since my changeover for Blackberry Booster, which of course I did not need or indeed use on my iPhone! So I decided to call.

I will just summarise this quickly as I want to get on to the social media bit.

I initially phoned their customer services and connected with the Philippines and it was not a pleasant experience at all. Basically I could not hear them properly because of the line quality and on top of that the agent would not allow me to speak and if I did speak she would repeat back what I had said to make sure she understood what I had just said. This meant a lot of wasted 'yes that is correct' sentences on my part.

After a long while, when she finally realised she could not solve my problem, she ended the call by saying she would send my account for re-calculation.

I decided to share my frustration on twitter and I received a nice response from T-Mobile.

In the end I had to email T-Mobile to get them in the UK to call me to sort it, which in fairness they did quickly.

My bill should now be showing the correct figures. OK when I did check a few days later, surprise, surprise it did not. Better still they had given me an early termination penalty for cancelling my Blackberry booster. I have not had a Blackberry for 4 months now! After sorting that with the Philippines again, they confirmed all should be well. However my bill online was still incorrect, so I resorted to Twitter.

What I received from T-Mobile via twitter was a very fast and satisfactory conversation that was resolved to my satisfaction, whereas the initial telephone conversation I had was far from resolved.

For me it shows that Social Media can work and have significant impact on the Brand, providing it is done well and T-Mobile have done this very well on this occasion.

Email in praise of faggots cooks up an offal storm!

My Father-in-Law got involved with the 'Internet Law' and consequently managed to get on page 3 of the Daily Telegraph. His name is John Sanders. Below is the article by Martin Evans of the 23rd February. When Dudley councillor Pat Martin used her official email to chat to a friend about favourite childhood foods, she assumed no one would mind. But within hours of sending her innocent message, she was being warned by her bosses about using offensive language that could contravene the council’s code of conduct.

Confused, Mrs Martin, who served as Dudley’s mayor between 2009 and 2010, investigated further and discovered that, in discussing the famous Black Country dish of faggots, she had set alarm bells ringing. While in Dudley the term is universally used to describe a traditional meatball delicacy made from offal, the word has a wholly different connotation in other parts of the world. In the United States, where Dudley Council’s internet security software is designed, it is a derogatory term for homosexuals.

Mrs Martin immediately contacted the council’s IT department to assure them her conversation had been entirely innocent. But she said it highlighted how political correctness was being applied to the most mundane of situations.

Problems began when Mrs Martin received an email from a friend, John Sanders, prompted by a letter he had recently had published in The Daily Telegraph. Mrs Martin said: “I emailed him to congratulate him. The letter was about the availability of Gentleman’s Relish and we began discussing traditional foods from our childhood. “John mentioned his father’s hot-cross buns and his mother’s faggots. I didn’t even use the word, but when I replied the email was picked up by the Sophos internet security software. “I received a warning about using profanities, I was very puzzled, I had no idea what it was referring to.” The council’s IT department explained that the Sophos software was an American system and faggots was on its list of profane words.

Fortunately, they saw the funny side and accepted that the system was not necessarily tailored for the Black Country dialect and its local delicacies. Mrs Martin said: “It was quite funny in the end but it does highlight how innocent things can get blown out of all proportion.” Mr Sanders, 76, a retired solicitor whose original reference to faggots sparked the confusion, said: “I couldn’t believe it when I heard. My mother’s faggots were a real speciality. I think if she was alive now she would find it hilarious to think of her recipe causing all this fuss. I think it is a case of common sense not being applied. Something that is becoming more and more apparent these days.”

Volunteering

I have recently become an Ambassador for Kemp Hospice in Kidderminster, a great charity who add 'quality to life' for people that may have an illness that reduces their quality of life. They are a great bunch of people running it and an even greater bunch of people volunteering. I spent a few hours getting introduced to their warehouse, where they sort through all their donations and decide what's suitable for the shops or not. It's been a real eye opener, as I have always wondered about the workings behind the scenes in charity shops. And although we have seen Mary Portas doing her magic on a famous charity chain of shops in the UK, it is still a real revelation to see and hear what happens.

One thing is for sure, they need more volunteers, as there is lots of sorting to be done. So I wanted to share a few learnings from my time in the warehouse.

Separate clothes between really good and really bad, assume something that looks worn is in the really bad category. Kemp only wish to sell really good quality clothing and something that either looks badly worn or is soiled goes to rags. Now here is the great news, there is money to be made out of rags and this is a great reason to send all your clothes into charities. But to help them, please sort your clothing into 'really good' and 'really bad'. That way the volunteers do not have to do as much sorting. They still need to check it but it makes the job a lot easier.

Unless shoes are brand new or hardly worn or vintage, send them all to the shoe bank on refuse sites. There is something not so pleasant about wearing second hand shoes is there? I know some people will and need to but the idea is to get the quality of merchandise as good as possible in charity shops. It means that we can rely on getting some great bargains in charity shops and give the rest of the high street a run for their money.

Kemp have some great ideas for their shops in Kidderminster, Bewdley and Stourport-on-Severn, which means a better look and feel for customers.

Then there is eBay and they will soon, with the help of 'yours truly', be selling on eBay too. And after investigating this inside eBay I also learnt that when anyone sells on eBay, they can nominate to make a donation from their sale to their chosen charity and eBay will discount your insertion fee by 50%. Now that's something to consider, as it's a win win.

I thoroughly enjoyed my few hours sorting through items for sale and making sure that only the best goes to their shops for those customers keen to look for a bargain.

I am sure I will share more in the months to come.

Human Capital Checklist for UK plc

From the Ninth Annual People Management and Development Barometer Report Highlights of recent CIPD surveys

Resourcing strategies and objectives Fifty-six per cent of survey participants reported having a formal resourcing strategy. The top three resourcing objectives were attracting and recruiting key staff (79%), enabling the achievement of the organisation’s strategic plan (59%) and meeting the future skills requirements of the organisation (47%). However over half of the organisations surveyed said the recession was having a negative impact on their resourcing budget for 2010/11. More organisations said that they would be focusing on developing talent in-house and retaining rather than recruiting talent this year compared with last year. There are some indications that efforts to reduce recruitment costs will be made as more report they are reducing reliance on recruitment agencies.

The good news is fewer organisations said they would be implementing a recruitment freeze in (22%). More (65%) expected to continue to recruit key talent/niche areas (53%). Nevertheless the outlook appeared much bleaker for the public sector, where particularly large proportions are anticipating recruitment freezes (51%) and reducing the number of recruits they hire (68%).

The volume of applicants for vacancies has increased. Seventy-six per cent of employers have noticed an increase in the number of unsuitable applicants and 32% reported that there were too many suitable candidates to choose from. At the same time, 41% reported that competition for talent was greater as the pool of available talent to hire had fallen sharply. As in previous years, the majority of turnover is attributed to employees leaving voluntarily. The voluntary turnover rate reduced substantially in the manufacturing and production sector (2010 survey: 2.7%; 2009 survey: 7.7%).

Employee attitudes and the recession In all, 19% of respondents say it is likely or very likely they could lose their job as a result of the recession, a slight increase from the previous quarters figure of 18%. There is no change in employees’ attitudes towards the labour market, with just 10% believing it would be easy or very easy to get a new job if they lost their current job. The proportion of employees saying their employer has made redundancies as a result of the economic downturn has fallen very slightly to 30%. There has also been a continuing trend by employers to cut back on training. Pay freezes also continue to be more widely reported, with 43% of respondents saying their organisation has introduced a pay freeze, up from 40% last quarter. Only 21% of respondents are currently looking for a new job with a different employer. However, over a third (37%) would ideally like to change jobs within the next year.

Key findings Senior HR people identify the top three organisational priorities to be managing costs (73%), growing the current business (65%) and focusing on customer need (54%). The proportion of employers that expected staff levels to increase against those that expected them to decrease improved to +12 in the three months to December 2010 from –3 in the three months to December 2009. However, employers are less optimistic about the medium-term outlook. The proportion of staff that expected staff levels to increase against those that expected them to decrease is +1 in the 12 months to September 2011.

A year ago the CIPD forecast that 2010 would be a better year for jobs than either 2008 or 2009 as the UK economy gradually began to emerge from the deepest and longest recession since the Second World War. By this they meant a relative improvement, with employment falling by less and unemployment rising by less than during the recession. In the event, however, 2010 turned out to be a much better year for jobs with the number of people in work increasing and unemployment starting to fall. Despite this they expect 2011 to see a return to falling employment and rising unemployment though we do not envisage the deterioration in labour market conditions being anything like as severe as during the recession. At the same time they expect that, as in 2010, average earnings will increase by less than price inflation resulting in a squeeze in workers’ real incomes. Our longer-term forecast in turn indicates that labour market conditions will remain weak in 2012 before starting to recover more robustly in 2013.

The most frequently cited causes of recruitment difficulties were lack of specialist skills (67%). Between 2009 and 2010, the proportion of organisations reporting retention difficulties decreased from 69% to 55%. Labour turnover for all UK employees averaged 14%, down from 16% in 2009.

Types of jobs and pay prospects for 2011 They feel that even if 2011 turns out to be a ‘jobs-light’ rather than a ‘jobs-loss’ or ‘jobs standstill’ year, the chances are that the bulk of any new private sector jobs will continue to reflect the experience of 2010, with part-time and temporary jobs in the majority. Moreover, the bulk of workers will feel a squeeze in their living standards, with pay rises still relatively modest against a backdrop of higher prices for many essential products and services, higher taxes, the availability of credit still tight and the likelihood of falling house prices.

Even on the relatively more optimistic OBR jobs forecast, unemployment will act as a tough constraint on pay rises which are unlikely to outstrip price inflation. 2011 will, like 2010, be a year of real pay squeeze for most workers, especially those in the public sector. A ‘jobs-light/pay-tight’ year is probably the best we can hope for, which will make for another challenging

Key human capital benchmarks (UK averages) Recruitment and staffing Labour turnover 16% Organisations making 10 or more staff redundant 33% Organisations experiencing recruitment difficulties 68% Organisations experiencing retention problems 55%

Social Potential

Is social becoming your current ritual

Your escape into techno digital

Deciding to leave human interaction behind

Excited of what knowledge you might find

Searching for strangers who you consider to befriend In exchange for compliments and the latest trend

Spend some time becoming knowledgable and wise

As more questions appear they will cause you strife

When the time is right and you want to sleep in the night

Give me a call but only during the day And I will dissolve all your worries away

Social may well become the spice of life

Consider the consequences now with your coach at Staying Alive!

The Domino Effect of Leadership

The first time I was exposed to the concept of leadership, apart from in my parental home, was at primary school in Amsterdam, when the teachers had put together a huge presentation about the holocaust and a display of the most horrendous images I had ever seen so far during my young life. It certainly made an impression on me and has stayed with me forever. I guess that was the objective.

Of course the leader that caused this according to my teachers was Hitler. Now Hitler is probably the most famous leader of all time, not because of the good he did, but because of his terrible deeds. Everyone does forget that his actions were duplicated by many of his officers and followers, who copied his behaviour and his actions in great detail.

In this short piece I would like to engage you to think a little bit about leadership. In particular the effect leadership has on the people around you. We are all leaders, whether you think you are or not. Your actions and your behaviour have an impact on how others behave around you.

I would like you to have think about the most senior leader that works in your organisation or a leader that you have worked for at some time in your life. More than likely you will have had either a great or not so great experience. And more than likely you will remember the experience. Most leaders that we have worked for, maybe not even directly will be memorable to us. Consider for a few minutes those leaders that have had the most impact on you.

Now just take one of them and consider what it was about her/him that made it so memorable for you.

Now can you remember who this person's leader was? What was your view of her/him at the time?

Can you see any similar behaviour patterns between them both. Consider just even one and you will see that there will be some similarities in their behaviour.

Humans more than any animal on this planet copy their fellow humans in their behaviour. Why do you think it is that daughters and sons end up being so very similar to their mothers or fathers. I am sure there is lots of research on this subject.

Anyway what's the point of all this I hear you say? Well, in terms of leadership and those at the most senior positions in corporate life, they have very little idea the impact they have on those around them. Their behaviour literally will shape the way that people will ultimately behave. If you are an encouraging and sympathetic leader, you will encourage those traits of those around you and indeed it will filter throughout the entire organisation. If you are an autocratic leader, maybe moody and short tempered, guess what? The same traits will develop of those that report to you and very likely to the rest of the team below them.

Quite worrying don't you think? Well it's also an opportunity to self reflect and examine your own behaviour and look around you and consider all the people who have made an impact on you during your life, your parents, teachers, friends, colleagues and most importantly the person you are or have worked for.

My message is for all leaders and as you are a leader in some way in your life, please consider how you behave towards the people that have to take your lead, whether it's your own children or people that work for you. The way that you act, the things that you say, your written communication have a major and significant impact on the people around you.

And more importantly if you lead a large group of people and are a CEO of a major organisation your people will copy you starting with your immediate reports and although it will water down somewhat, it will still filter down to all the layers within the organisation.

That's why I have called it the 'Domino Effect of Leadership'

I would love to hear about your own experiences.

In between me writing this article, I watched a programme on BBC 4 about the Brain with Michael Mosely and found that he was confirming my theory and that this was put to the test in 1961.

In 1961 Albert Bandura conducted a controversial experiment known as the Bobo doll experiment, to study patterns of behaviour associated with aggression. Bandura hoped that the experiment would prove that aggression can be explained, at least in part, by social learning theory, and that similar behaviors were learned by individuals modeling their own behavior after the actions of others. The experiment was criticised by some on ethical grounds, for training children towards aggression. Bandura's results from the Bobo Doll Experiment changed the course of modern psychology, and were widely credited for helping shift the focus in academic psychology from pure behaviorism to cognitive psychology. The experiment is among the most lauded and celebrated of psychological experiments. Here is a video clip that shows the experiment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWsxfoJEwQQ

Michael

Will I be a good blogger?

I have never done it...done what?? Blogging! I have resisted it for years, something about my past life I think.  I did a past life regression once, whether you are in to that or not, and found out that I was a famous author and my works had been stolen.  There was no internet in those days, just paper and ink I guess and once someone grabbed those writings, that would be it!  No back up copy, maybe the loose thoughts of what was in your brain, would be all that you had.  You also did not sell books in those days, you would use your writings to carry out lectures and hope that some of it would stick with the masses.  Bizarre that I would have that thought, so somehow this had an impact on my life in the 21st century and I have not been sure if it was worth writing at all. They do say don't they that everyone has a book inside of them. Now, I am not sure anymore whether people will still wish to read books in the future or am I being naive?  With the explosion of technology and pads and smart phones everywhere you look, twitter, facebook, youtube and blogging sites, why would you have to read a book from cover to cover, when you can learn so much more in soundbites?  I am sure the bookworms amongst you will be shouting and screaming, NO!  And I would have to agree that there always will be time when you just want to get lost in someone else's world and their brave journey, because for some reason someone else's journey is so much more interesting then our own.

Well I have decided I am going to have a go and do some writing, about what I have no idea yet.  My initial view is that it is going to be a mixture of my own philosophy and technology.  I know its a strange combination but they are both dear to me and I believe there is a lot to be said about how we as a human race are combining the two in the way that we conduct our lives these days.  They are totally inter-related and have a major impact on each other.  How exactly I need to figure out as yet, but I am sure it will come as I start typing inside this lovely blog.

I am looking forward to it and I am equally looking forward to your views and comments, as a good conversation and debate will be fun as well.

Ok that's all for now.

Michael