Dear Mom,
I got a job in Social Media! Don't worry, I didn't leave my existing company, but I just have a new role.
As you know, I've been working at Infor, a business software company, for the past 13 years. Even though I 'do something with computers' and *love* fixing your PC issues, my role for for the past decade has been a bit more involved. I've focused on providing value to Infor by managing the development & marketing of it's websites (you could loosely summarize this as Internet Marketing if anyone asks). However over the last few years I have been increasingly involved in something called Social Media (though it's more correctly defined as Social Computing).
About a year ago, our CMO at Infor wanted to explore the use of Social Media to, among other things, bring our 80,000+ customers, 1,200+ partners, and 7,000+ employees closer together. Eventually, they realized that I would be the best person to head this group, develop a strategy, and execute it. So, I've been 'officially' doing this role for about 10 months now.
Now that you're on Facebook, you probably know Social Media as websites or tools that connect people into communities. Some other websites you've probably heard about are Twitter and LinkedIn, but there are hundreds more. Social Media is pretty popular right now, with many people capitalizing on misinformation by writing books, lecturing, forming events, blogging, and 'networking'. Despite what you read though, it's quite straight forward and fundamentally just involves genuine communication using a new set of tools.
As you know I thrive in areas that are overcomplicated (for no apparent reason) and that empower people. Social Media is just such an area. Some of the basic ideas were discussed in a book called 'The Cluetrain Manifesto' over a decade ago. It discussed how the Internet can take the relationship that businesses and consumers have, back to how it was before big manufacturers produced everything in bulk. Kind of how you like to meet and discuss the produce you buy with the farmers that grew them. This was how the Intranet originally was, so I'm glad it's going back that way.
So my new role is to develop strategies to help Infor build stronger relationships using these social sites and tools - both internally focused for our employees/partners and externally for our customers/prospects. You would think that smart companies are already connected with everyone involved in their business, and Infor is more than others, but these new social sites are creating new and faster ways to easily connect.
Some of the elements of the strategy I've created are:
- Explain the business value of Social Media
- Cultivate Executive sponsorship for my plan
- Help others overcome the fear of participating in Social Media
- Develop Policies and Procedures for employees
- Encourage and motivate employees to participate
- Educate & train employes/partners on using Social Media for their business goals
I'm well underway executing day-to-day tactics of my strategy. I've got the backing of my manager and numerous people willing to help me. So far I've got over 1/3 of our 7,000+ employees participating in some form of Social Media. Kind of exciting! Right now I'm spending most of my time with #6 above, which is why I haven't been able to call in a long time, *sorry*. But since you've friended me on Facebook, you probably know a lot of what my daily activities are anyways.
Soon I'll share more about how I'm transforming Infor into a social company and what things are working and what things aren't. Miss you and talk to you soon!
Love Venson
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