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Using LinkedIn groups for online engagement

The White House is claiming success in using its LinkedIn social media group as a forum for a public policy discussion on reforming the financial services industry.

The Wall Street conversation has generated 296 comments from members of the White House's LinkedIn group in 12 days. The discussion is being led by Jen Psaki, deputy communications director at the White House and one of the group's three leaders.

via fcw.com

This example is from the government sector, but across the board - commercial and non-commercial - I think there is good reason to consider LinkedIn as a place to host a discussion with stakeholders or customers.

The main benefit of using LinkedIn over either hosting your own discussion or using the 'default' strategies of Facebook or Twitter is that you have a ready made community of mainly professional users that you can engage with - if done right - through a platform they already have some level of familiarity with.

It does help that LinkedIn finally rolled out some improvements to how groups work a few months ago. To be honest, I had almost given up participating in any LinkedIn groups because the user experience was so bad. That now looks like it is improving, which is why I think LinkedIn is now worth a second look.

Of course, all the functionality in the world doesn't make up for poor community management, which in most cases is the root cause of a bad LinkedIn group. The signs of poor community management are often quite obvious - too much spam, a hands off moderation style, no content curation, lack of community focus and endless questions from people to lazy to research an issue for themselves. There is nothing new here, but as with many community orientated Web 2.0 technologies I find that access to collaboration tools doesn't immediately equate to quality of collaboration.

Learn more about group functionality, in LinkedIn's online help. There is also a case study on how uses Phillips' marketing use their Innovations in Health group.

From HBR: Six Ways to Find Value in Twitter's Noise

via hbr.org

A nice short article that actually shares some good advice on listening to social media. The author puts forward the following six guidelines to help you avoid making assumptions about the trends you see the data:

  1. Learn about the competitive landscape;
  2. Look for unexpected themes;
  3. Dip deeper into the stream;
  4. Look for user experiences;
  5. Learn why negative words are coming up; and
  6. Learn about conversation dominators.

These guidelines are mostly applicable across all kinds of social media and not just Twitter.

Of course when it comes to listening to social media, it helps if you target something specific like the iPad launch, which attracted over 500,000 tweets. :-)

People with broken toilets use the Internet too

I know this might come as a surprise to some, but you know, people with broken toilets also use the Internet too.

Unfortunately, this point is lost on some because I spent most of my Saturday trying to answer a relatively simply question: Can I stop my Caroma toilet from leaking, without needing to call a plumber. And if I do need help or have to seek assistance at the local hardware store for a Caroma part, what do I need to tell them about what is broken?

Now, I should point out that Caroma Australia have spent a decent amount of time and effort on creating a couple of a nice looking Websites and have even created a presence on flickr, YouTube and Facebook. However, if you are looking for some simple instructions on how to fix the most basic of problems you might encounter, then don't bother. A google search eventually threw up some buried technical specs, but they didn't really help me with my issue.

This doesn't mean that they haven't done this in the past - its just hard to find, although in at least one person's opinion, it still doesn't actually provide enough detail so they ended up making their own video. Unfortunately for me, these instruction cover an old model anyway as there aren't any tabs to!

Now, in order to save you some time and effort if you are faced with this same problem, I thought I would share what I eventually found out. Changing the rubber washer didn't take long, but I spent a far bit of time working out how to do it!

Firstly, does you Caroma dual flush look like this? If not, check the other video link above.

I believe this is a called an M5 or Mark 5 or possibly a Whisper Quiet Inlet Valve. If this looks your model, then watch the video listed here called, Mark 5 valve seal replacement (in .avi format). Note that this video was created not by Caroma but by a Canadian company called Sustainable Solutions International. Now, unfortunately, this video still makes it look really easy - their unit just clicks out with a simple twist.

I was getting really frustrated after watching the video until I read this:

I read everything on the web and a video (all useless) that avoids the hard parts and things just miraculously appear or disappear!! 
Finally after trying in vein on my own for ages I got mad at the whole f'ing thing and pulled so hard it feels like you are going to break it and presto, it is just designed to be pulled out. 

There are NO TABS just locking notches on some models.

Next you have to lever off the slot off the middle plunger. Then after trying to lever off the bottom centre of the plunger to replace the washer one realises this isn't going to work you need to pull the old one off and stretch the new one on.

Simple when you know but no one tells you..... Companies like Caroma should web publish simple instructions for all their different products and save us all some grief. Simply retarded that they don't.

(Emphasis added)

So, I persisted and hey presto... I discovered that it does come out with a twist and a pull:
   
Click here to download:
People_with_broken_toilets_use.zip (276 KB)
If you look at this picture of the rubber washer, you can see it is has some odd bumps on the edges:

The replacement washer (which again, provides very little information about it being a suitable replacement part - but looks the same at least) is nice and smooth.

Now, you might have noticed that this isn't a DIY or plumbing blog. But that's kind of the point isn't it? Because social media isn't just for marketing.

New research on the proliferation of consumer-based social networking - symptoms vs perspectives?

via newsroom.cisco.com

Hmm. I'm trying to work the significance of this research (if any). However, more data is good, right?

I can't but help think that their perspective is all wrong, rather than anything else. I get the impression that social networking and social media is thought as something out there beyond the walls of the organisation, rather than something that is in fact everywhere. Does this explain why they are surprised that these tools are being used for collaboration within and between organisation, not just between companies and their customers?

Their main conclusion is the "need for stronger governance and IT involvement", but again I wonder if in fact what they mean is that these new technologies have a broader impact beyond marketing and therefore need involvement from across the organisation to determine how to best integrate them into business as usual.

I come back again to the Headshift/Dachis Group's Social Business Design model - focusing on governance and IT involvement is just a symptom, when what is needed is new perspectives to management.

Hat tip to Oliver.

Social Computing Inside and Out at the Adidas Group

via slideshare.net

I need to come back and read through these slides a little more carefully, but on the face of it this could be a great case study of what Social Business Design is getting at - the application of social computing holistically in an organisation. Its not just about social media marketing, but neither is just about 'Enterprise 2.0'.

What isn't so clear for me is how well the outside and inside is connected... but still its a good start.

Hat tip to Lars Basche.