Roundtable

The prevalence of broadband and the pervasiveness of mobile devices has made social media a normal part of many people’s every day lives. But what about its effect on the enterprise? Momentum spoke to three experts to get a sense of where the opportunities lie.

How big a change does social media represent?
David Jacobson. It is major thing – a sea change in human behaviour. At PwC we have an alumni community, a social network that can be a very powerful entrée into new kinds of work for audit, tax, and advisory. It’s very powerful. And within PwC we can use Facebook or YouTube at any time of the day – we have opened up considerably. This changes how we look at work. We still charge for our time, but performance evaluation systems look at the quality of the work and feedback from clients, and social media supports this.

Rob Hyndman. Social media is not entirely novel, but organizations are still struggling with native conservatism. One of the key distinctions between social media and other forms of media is the loss of control. It represents a new relationship between employees and information, and this can be hard to adapt to.

Thomas Purves. It’s big because these are powerful tools for smaller organizations. The economies of scale and scope still matter a lot, and big companies can still be successful in spite of their inefficiencies, but small companies can be more competitive and nimble.

It sounds like the real story is more cultural than technological. TP. Social media brings two cultural issues to the fore: the first is trust; the second revolves around personality issues. If an employer has to codify the use of social media by blocking Facebook or webmail, the employee feels condescended to. Having a Nanny attitude won’t make people more productive. And with regard to personality: some people thrive on structure, some are detail oriented – social media allows for accommodation of networking systems and work styles.

RH. There is a fear of liability, of legal risk, which leads some to assert control. But as a practical matter there are very few instances in Canada so far of social media causing actual liability or meaningful legal risk. Also, everyone is struggling with the issue of anonymity: is anonymity the right approach? There are pros and cons, but one problem with anonymity is that the quality of content in a community often deteriorates if comment is anonymous.? The right approach depends on the nature and the purpose of the organization or community. I can see where anonymous comments could help where candour is needed; edited, perhaps, to create a better community.

DJ. There has been a lot of talk of convergence, but we are really living in an age of emergence. At this level there is less fear of the CEO. Some leaders of organizations are feeling uncomfortable. It’s strange for them to have workforces with such high expectations. But we have found that if you explain the underlying concept of social media to organizations, then they get it quickly.

Some managers still don’t get it?
RH. My impression is that there is still a lot of resistance out there. Traditional workplaces are alive and well, and many will not change any time soon. In some there are good reasons for continuing the way they are, but at the same time there are insurgencies – sometimes from the inside, and sometimes from the outside. This is one of the great management revolutions of our time, and it is happening at a grassroots level.

DJ. People can fall into the trap of only talking about the technology, but the underlying concepts are really important. Social media has powerful tools for unlocking and sharing tacit knowledge. And that can be true in any number of environments – it could be in manufacturing, or in financial services. At PwC we have about 5,000 employees; that’s 5,000 distributed databases walking around. Digital media can transcend borders and increase business effectiveness.

TP. Essentially, there are three kinds of work: tacit, transactional, and transformative. Business managers need to realize that only one of these three can’t be automated, and that’s tacit knowledge. In all industries innovation occurs at the tacit level.

What effect does social media have on loyalty?
DJ. It increases loyalty, but it can be dangerous for an organization as well as an individual to fall into the trap of “being lived” instead of living. There can be the risk of not taking the tools to work, but of having the tools follow you home.

TP. Young people now only expect to work for a couple of years at a stretch. It almost makes less sense to invest in training. Employees will bring their own tools to work. In effect, the CIOs have already lost the battle and don’t know it.

RH. My impression is that it makes employee loyalty more rational. Maybe employees shouldn’t be as loyal as they are; with social media they can explore personal productivity in ways they couldn’t before. Again and again I see with clients and friends that new tools lead to an explosion in creativity. The result is that people will expect more out of their workplace. I hear people all the time evaluating employers in terms of their attitude to these new tools.

But presumably this can’t be a free-for-all?
TP. I think it does often need structure – it certainly needs leadership. One of the worst things you can do is throw a wiki over the fence. You need to think of what you want to do with social media, and how it might help create more transparency and accountability.

DJ. I agree – it very much depends on your objective. Clients come to us and ask: should I use Facebook? Twitter? We tell them to define their objective. In the workplace we want the tacit knowledge that is relevant to the business.

RH. Two years ago the Government of Ontario banned Facebook, and I got a flood of calls from businesses thinking of doing the same. People reflexively wanted to clamp down usage and study the issue. But we have evolved to the point where the approach is more thoughtful.

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