Businesses don’t get social media

I was at a panel discussion organised by the F.S. Club: the topic “Do Banks get social media?”. Chris Skinner from the F.S. Club facilitated this enthralling discussion with social media experts who presented their different views. These are experts who blog and tweet personally. And they have their own take on social media in organisations: from those who have embraced it in some form within FS, to an implementor who advises other businesses on how to do it, to someone who is sitting, may be undecided or perhaps unconvinced, by the sidelines. The onus was of course on Banks though in my opinion this could easily apply to any institution.

Some interesting comments from the panel can be found here. I picked up a certain theme such as “need for experimenting with social media”, and of course several questions. Such as the ones concerning efficiency: “how to scale online, social exchanges?”, and those seeking opportunity: “can you make money using social media?”, and the deeper: “what constitutes a business, a person or a transaction?” The last question is a good one; organisation science is a discipline and there are contrasting theories on what an organisation is and how it should be managed (mostly around structure, politics, human resources, society and symbolism).

This question gets asked in every era. There is no doubt that from the industrial economy to the knowledge economy, organisations have changed. And if the coming era is that of the social network economy??, then this would demand a yet different framework. In my opinion, it would demand the greatest change. There are several challenges to organisations that want to thrive in the new economy:

1. Thus far organisations have always maintained a clear boundary between themselves and their environment. However as someone in the panel pointed, Google (always a leading example of the new economy) is quite the opposite; it is “porous”. So the social economy would demand more of this amoeba-like quality (sorry if it seems a bit crude). This is entirely different to the insulation that most existing organisations prefer. Google was started only 10 years back by two PhD students who audaciously believed they could capture everything on the web on their single computer. And they shaped different rules to achieve that – whether it is the 20% time or do no evil, Google’s ethos and operating procedures are something that many other institutions will not be able to emulate.

2. Industries are of course regulated. And somehow the ones that are most regulated (like Banks perhaps) have themselves taken on the role of gatekeepers. Contrast this with the web; there is freedom there and social media demands that organisations be more like facilitators rather than gatekeepers. So roles and responsibilities, and mostly power distribution, are changing. And this is never easy to get accustomed to.

3. Most businesses have fought their entire existence to project a single consistent image. Of course in reality every customer forms their own view of the business. But management nevertheless has campaigned hard and spent huge budgets on branding. The web is different. It’s an alternate reality and allows participants to have multiple personalities. Which means that organisations that want to actively participate in the new era will need to get away from that single image and be different things to different people? This is much more complex than the global v/s local dilemma of the globalisation era.

4. Social media allows communities to take ownership (ownership of an idea or a tool and give it some meaning). Interestingly at this point we are owners of some high street Bank. Most of us are reluctant owners. And I find this a bit strange. Of course banks have got a bad reputation and this ownership was forced; there was no freedom to choose. I suspect it is also unappealing because we are owners by an old framework; which is that we are all capital owners of something tired and not really idea owners of something cool. May be the frameworks supporting what we produce, what we consume and how we trade today are also are also losing appeal?

5. In my opinion the more established businesses experiment less. Yes, innovation and NPD are taken seriously by some, but there is always the promise of a top-line benefit driving the business case. So far there is no clear blueprint to benefits realisation using social media.

It is equally important to ground all of this in some reality.  There is a lot of hoopla in the social media world that is undeserved and may never find mass. But this only adds to confusion for organisations as there is little research or expertise on this new economy to say what would work and what doesn’t deserve attention.

One final thing that makes me a bit uncomfortable: we cannot tell organisations that they need to get into social media because there is some sort of first-mover advantage. Firstly, I don’t believe that first-mover advantage is sustainable. Secondly, technology and tools are getting more commoditised, so the trend is opposite and this never makes a compelling sale. Finally, isn’t social media incredible because we are all allowed to find our own meaning of it? So we should leave organisations to figure this out on their own. Some will find some meaning, some will not last. This economic downturn will only make the purge look more natural.

Interestingly this discussion was held at Lloyd’s. Which is a bit ironic given that Insurance has a far worse reputation when it comes to technology than Banks.

Unpretentious bank

If, for some reason, you still love your bank, then may be this would change your mind.

Trust

The context of this talk is Banking where trust runs low thesedays. I found a lot of interesting Trust talk, with a few thought-provoking and motivational statements towards the end, that is worth sharing.

Mobile payments

I found this blog post about Mobile payments in China and I am sharing it here unashamedly. What was interesting to learn is that UMPay (A Unionpay and China Mobile service in China) already has 100 million users and its target market is really the rural areas. I believe there are more mobile users than internet users in China (please feel free to correct me if not) so I can see why UMPay CEO believes he can hit the half-a-billion users mark soon.

I believe in India the m-payment user numbers stack up to only a few million. I haven’t been to India in a while so perhaps I am not the best person to comment, but I am absolutely sure that the mobile market in India is smaller than in China. I want to share a video of mCheck’s m-wallet use in India. Check out the related videos too. I hate to advertise any particular provider, however I just loved these videos where they demonstrate with real users how it works. Good work that.