social media as a change driver in financial services
DESCRIPTION
Presentation to Social Media in Financial Services conference, 29th June 2011TRANSCRIPT
Social Media as a Driver of Organisational & Cultural Change Within Financial Services
Martin Thomas @crowdsurfing
“Digital communications is a destabilizing force in a bureaucratic environment. And I am sitting right in the middle of a bureaucratic environment.’”Senior corporate communications director
“We’re not set up for this shit”UK CEO
The Real Social Media Effect
o Driving new behaviours & expectations Dramatizing institutions’ structural, operational
& cultural weaknesses
Connected Consumer meets Disconnected CorporationConnected Consumer meets Disconnected Corporation
Social Media Success Built On
o Being responsive
o Being human
o Being open/transparent
Slow & bureaucratic
Faceless
Opaque
Thriving by Loosening Up
o Operational & cultural traits of successful organisations
TrustingOpenAgileInformal Collaborative
Tight Thinkers Need Not Apply
o Organisations & people that struggle with this new worldHierarchicalBureaucraticProcess orientedDistrustful
1. Trusting
o Bedrock of strong internal cultureo Allows shared responsibility & real time
decision making
The best company rulebook ever written?
Nordstrom Revisited
“Prescriptive rules have the effect of infantilising staff & make it harder for them to adapt to different situations. This goes as much for digital communications as for selling socks … Like the Nordstrom handbook we’re trusting staff to follow the spirit, not just the letter, of our guidelines”Meg Pickard, writing about The Guardian’s new social media guidelines, November 2010
How to Build an Empire
“Presumed Competence”
Trust Your Own People
2. Open
o Transparency & honesty non negotiable
Capable of transforming reputations
Openness is more than this …
Openness is …
o Encouraging real conversations with people inside & outside the organisation
o Being transparento Engaging critics & embracing criticism
A Simple, Proven Formula
Openness
Trust
3. Agile
o Responding to hyper-speed culture
“The trouble with McDonald’s is it’s too bloody slow”
Instant access, instant response, instant gratification “living life through shortcuts” MTV
Acceleration of News Agenda
1952Lynmouth
flood disaster
1952Lynmouth
flood disaster
1988Piper Alpha explosion
1988Piper Alpha explosion
May 2008Sichuan
Earthquake
May 2008Sichuan
Earthquake
Jan 2009Hudson River plane crash
Jan 2009Hudson River plane crash
2 days 1 hour 30 minutes
Real Time
Real Time+
Spring 2011Live blogging during Arab
Spring
Spring 2011Live blogging during Arab
Spring
Service Innovations Heightened Expectationso Speed & responsiveness
Crisis Management in Real Time
Why Many Institutions Struggle
o Not configured to work in real time, in terms of speed or resources
10 minutes10 minutes60 minutes60 minutes
* Critical response time for responding to negative comments
Organisational Agility
o Ability to improvise & operatein close to real time & to act on real time information
o Long-term planning has its place… but successful institutions have the ability to improvise & respond smartly to unexpected opportunities as the emerge
4. Informal
o NPD: Living life in Beta
o Design: Messy vitality
o Creativity: Authenticity more important than production values
Informality in the Workplace
o Emphasis on freedom & trust
o Encouragement of creativity & individual responsibility
“We’re giving people the latitude to go off & do their own thing. We trust them to do their regular jobs & to experiment, innovate & have fun”Microsoft Snr Mgr, quoted in Business Strategy Review
5. Collaborative
o Tapping into spirit of collective self expression
o Leveraging people’s willingness to shape service & product offers
No Excuses
o Being highly regulated may require caution but doesn’t excuse inaction
o Why would any institution not want to be: Trusting? Open? Agile? Informal? Collaborative?
o This could be the change driver that financial services industry needs
@crowdsurfing
Get your organisation & culture right … & the social media will look
after itself… & it will also make you
a better business