communication » GNIUS

Better Communications Can Help Conquer The ‘Unexpected’

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 5:48 pm Social Media Tagged with: collaboration, commongoals, communication, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, Strategy

Jan 182011

It’s usually the ‘unexpected’ that creates the biggest difficulties for most organisations. Whilst traditional hierarchies and structures often make it difficult to respond quickly, now, social technologies and more open, networked, cultures are enabling organisations to develop timely and effective solutions when things don’t quite go as expected.

The Center for the Edge, part of Deloitte LLP, highlighted the impact ‘exceptions’ have on the day-to-day work of many organisations. Once something falls outside of the established business process, a huge amount of time and effort is wasted following rigid reporting lines, limiting both the speed at which issues can be addressed and the pool of expertise that can be called on to help provide an answer.

More often than not, the answer to the problem already exists within the organisation, or its extended network. The key to a more effective response system could therefore come from the wider adoption of some of the ‘social business’ tools that enable greater networking and collaboration. Mico-blogging feeds or Q+A forums can be used to ask questions of and get answers from the whole organisation within minutes, whilst detailed personal profiles can enable users to search for and connect with the exact people and specific skills they need to create and deliver the most effective response.

As with any new organisational initiatives, it’s not just about the technology. Alongside the tools it’s important to develop an appropriately open and supportive culture – one in which members are encouraged to acknowledge and share problems early rather than as a last resort, where there is a willingness to accept input and help and a widespread understanding of the value of supporting others rather than keeping your head down and worrying just about your own job.

The technology already exists, the real challenge is in changing the mentality. But a few quick wins and positive feedback from those whose ‘exceptions’ are addressed and it won’t be long before more organisations are looking at ways to connect their members more effectively.

Ofcom CMR 2010 – Social Media

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 5:31 pm Social Media Tagged with: communication, Research, Strategy

Sep 272010

Some further thoughts culled from Ofcom’s recently released Communications Market Report 2010. This time focusing on the use of social media sites.

Social networking now accounts for a quarter of all time spent online

In April 2007 social networking and blogs accounted for 9% of UK users’ total Internet time, according to audience data from UKOM/Nielsen. By April 2010, this had risen to 23%.

Use of social networking has continued to grow rapidly among all age groups.

Younger people are more likely to access social networking sites, but it is by no means exclusively a young person’s activity;

61% of 15- 34s claim to use social networking sites, compared to 40% of all adults aged 16+.
Nearly half (48%) of 35-54s use social networking sites, as do 20% of 55-64s (up 7% over the past year).

However, usage patterns vary substantially between age groups.

89% of 15-24s who access social networking sites do so weekly, but just 50% of 55-64s with a profile do so.

All demographics have seen an annual rise of at least ten percentage points in the number of people claiming to have social networking profiles.

ABC1s (46%, up from 35%)
C2s (39% up from 29%)
DEs (30%, up from 19%).
Women (42%) were slightly more likely than men (39%) to claim to access these sites.

Despite the growth of social networking among older age groups, and the high penetration among younger age groups, its take-up still lags behind total Internet take-up, with around 45% of those who have Internet access at home saying that no one in their household accesses social networking sites.

A fifth of 16-24s’ time spent social networking is on mobile devices

Social networking sites have taken advantage of the growing popularity of the mobile Internet and the increasing take-up of smart-phones. Most sites now have mobile-friendly versions and specific applications (apps) for smart-phones. The importance of mobile social networking is highlighted by Facebook, which claims that more than 100 million users access its site through mobile devices, and that such users are twice as active on Facebook as non-mobile users.

Data from Ofcom’s consumer’s digital day research show that using mobile devices to access social networking sites is particularly popular among younger adults (Figure 4.6). A fifth (20%) of the time they spend social networking is via a mobile device. This compares to the average of 15% for all adults who use social networking sites. The proportion of time spent social networking on mobile devices drops off rapidly among over-45s, at under 4%.

Google, Microsoft and Facebook are the most popular Internet brands

Google has the highest reach of any online brand in the UK, with 87% of active users (someone who used an Internet-enabled computer in May 2010) visiting a Google site in May 2010. This equates to 56% of the total UK population. MSN and Facebook were the next most popular brands, reaching 70% and 64% of all active users (45% and 41% of the population) respectively.

Facebook users spend more time social networking than users of other sites

While Google is the leading brand in terms of reach, Facebook leads in terms of average time spent per person. Facebook users spend substantially more time on the site than users of other social networking sites; 6 hours 30 minutes in April 2010 (an average of 13 minutes a day), down since a peak in November 2009 of 8 hours 39 minutes (17 minutes a day). Bebo was the next most intensively used site, with users spending an average of just under an hour on the site in April 2010. For most other sites the figure was around half an hour or less.

Audiences for many user-generated content sites continue to grow.

According to data from UKOM/Nielsen, many UGC sites’ audiences are growing steadily, although annual growth rates are falling. Photobox (30%), Wikipedia (19%), Blogger (16%) and WordPress.com (6%) all experienced solid growth in the year to May 2010.

YouTube remains the most popular video-sharing site, with nearly 17.5 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of more than two million in a year. But it is increasingly difficult to categorise YouTube purely as a UGC site, since it hosts a significant amount of professionally produced content made available by film studios, broadcasters, record labels and other content providers. For example, in November 2009 Channel 4 made its 4OD catch-up and archive service available through YouTube, and in December 2009 Five made similar content from its Demand Five service available on the video-sharing site.

But…apart from photo sharing and social networking, most internet users have little interest in UGC.

Ofcom research into user-generated content shows that social networking and photo-sharing are very popular. But most other activities are minority pursuits that do not arouse much interest in the wider population of people with Internet access.

49% upload photos to a website, 9% more expressed interest in doing this in the future.
44% claim to have set up a social network profile (double the level of 2007) 5% expressing an interest.
Commenting on blogs grew from 19% to 27%.
The number of people expressing interest in setting up their own website fell from 17% to 12%.

All activities except social networking and photo-sharing generated relatively low levels of interest (at least 64% of internet users indicated that they were ‘not interested’).

Young people were most likely to have engaged in user-generated content activities online.

A quarter (26%) of 16-24 year olds claimed to have made a short video and uploaded it to a website,
Only 2% of people aged 55+ with internet access make the same claim.

In general, the older an Internet user is, the less likely they are to have experience of a given UGC activity. However, the exception to this rule appears to be contributing to collaborative websites such as Wikipedia; 25-34 year olds were as likely to have done this as 16-24 year-olds (17%).

Ofcom Communications Market Report 2010

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 5:49 pm Social Media Tagged with: communication, Research, Strategy

Sep 202010

Ofcom recently released its Communications Market Report 2010.

With 379 pages of data and analysis about media consumption habits in the UK it offers plenty of interesting insights into the way people use communication technologies today. In this post, and another to follow on social media, we’ve picked out a few interesting bits worth thinking about.

UK consumers are spending almost half of their waking hours watching TV, using their smartphones and other communications devices.

In total people spent 8 hours and 48 minutes a day using various media content and communications services if counted separately, however simultaneous consumption allows them to fit all this into just seven hours and 5 minutes a day!

Figure 1.14 shows the various media and communications activities undertaken each hour of the day. Radio was most popular in the morning but declined by the evening when TV accounted for over half (52%) of all media activities.

Text communications and voice communications both account for a fair proportion of media activity throughout the day, only declining during the evening’s peak television time.

Print media made up an average of 6% of all media activity between 10:00 and 22:00, before peaking at 12% of all media activity at 23:00.

Over half the time people spend on media and communications activity makes use of a TV or radio set.

However, the research confirms that use is influenced by access and the disproportionately high access young people have to a range of digital communications devices and technologies has a bearing on the way they use a wide range of communications services.

For example, computer, mobile phone and hand-held devices all had higher levels of use among younger age groups. Almost three-fifths (58%) of all 16-24 year old media engagement was through one of these devices, compared to 18% for people aged over 55. By contrast, use of the more established devices and media, such as TV sets, radio sets, and print, generally increased with age.

Two-fifths of people’s time on a computer is spent communicating with other people (though the pattern of use differs by age);

37% of activity done on a computer by over-55s is communication-based. Most of this is emailing, which makes up 28% of all computer activity among this age group. An additional 8% of their computer activity is social networking, and 1% is instant messaging.
For 16-24s, over half their computer time is spent communicating with other people. They are more likely to use social networking (23% of all computer activity) and instant messaging (14%). Emailing is a smaller activity among this age group, making up 14% of their computer activity. Audio and video activities on the computer is also highest among this group.

Internet take-up is edging towards three-quarters of UK households

Almost all homes with computers are now connected to the internet. PC ownership is likely to be the biggest constraint on increases in household internet take-up in the immediate future.

The type of internet connection that a consumer has determines the type of content they can consume, with many forms of content requiring a broadband connection. Differences between fixed and mobile broadband connections, particularly with regard to bandwidth-intensive activities like video streaming, are also relevant, since mobile broadband connections are more susceptible to capacity constraints.

Consumers are accessing the internet across more and more devices.

Alongside the growth in internet connections, the range of internet-connected devices has grown rapidly in recent years. This means that many consumers now have a number of different ways to access web-based content. Apart from PCs and laptops, examples include:

Mobile phones – such as smartphones (like the iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Symbian devices), or ‘feature phones’ which offer a more limited internet browsing experience.
Games consoles – advanced games consoles such as the Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii allow users to browse the internet and consume web-delivered video content as well as playing games online.
Portable media players – devices such as the Apple iPod Touch and Archos 5 Internet Tablet have been joined by newer devices such as the Apple iPad, Dell Streak and various e-reader devices which all enable users to access internet content;
Other devices – such as internet TVs (for example, certain Sony Bravia and Samsung 6 Series models) and internet radios that combine online content with broadcast content.

Ofcom media literacy research shows that accessing websites through a computer or laptop is widespread, with 67% of adults claiming that they do this; compared to 28% of adults who claim to use a mobile phone to access websites, 10% who claim to use a games console, and 6% a portable media device.

Intranet Trends for 2010

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 2:00 pm Social Media Tagged with: communication, Internal Communications, Social Media, Strategy

Jan 292010

The release of the 10th Intranet Design Annual identifies a number of key trends for intranet development and internal communications for 2010.

Growing Intranet Teams – not only are more companies developing their own internal web presence, it seems that companies of all sizes are giving intranets higher priority, more resources and bigger teams.

Mobile Intranet Sites – the rising demand for accessing online content from mobile devices applies to internal content too, although for now at least it would seem that intranet development is lagging behind the rest of the digital world. As devices, especially smart phones, become cheaper and easier to use, mobile access will grow and so intranet developers will need to consider and cater for the specific needs and demands of their mobile audience.

Social Features on Intranets – these take the form of two different but connected streams -

individual features including profiles, discussions, comments and ratings, bookmarking and employee generated content
work-group features that help with knowledge sharing, collaboration, search and locating experts and answers.

Breaking Down Barriers with ‘Boss Blogs’ – whilst many companies have used ‘boss blogs’ to improve communications, more and more are adding discussions and comment features to develop more open, two-way conversations and make senior management teams more accessible and approachable.

Research, Testing and Promotion – the best organisations are realising that in order to get the most from their intranets and internal communications programmes, they need to spend time understanding what their audience needs and wants, testing and developing their solutions and promoting and encouraging trial of the results.

Crisis Management – as the intranet becomes a greater focal point for communications so organisations are realising its value as a vehicle both to prepare for potential emergencies and as a way of responding quickly to a crisis – sharing up to the minute information and guidance on what’s happening and how everyone in the organisation can contribute.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, is the commitment to Continuous Quality Improvement. Whether driven by new technology developments or feedback from users, the best intranets are continually being refined and developed. Many organisations are also developing usability and ROI metrics to ensure that this continuous development is adding real value to their business. This sort of long-term thinking reinforces the growing perception that effective on-line communications are now becoming a fundamental part of all good internal communications strategies and programmes.

A New Year’s Resolution – Get Yourself a Social Media Policy

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 4:10 pm Social Media Tagged with: communication, Social Media, Strategy

Jan 152010

2010 promises to be another big year in the development of social media, especially its influence on the world of business.

Still more and more people (most of them someones employees) are becoming more and more active online – developing facebook / Linkedin profiles, uploading content to YouTube or flickr or posting on blogs or twitter.

Like it or not, all this activity it has consequences for businesses. Whether it’s positive stories of employee bloggers providing valuable customer service, or the damaging effects of the occasional malicious post on YouTube, social media use by members of organisations is impacting on their businesses and these impacts will continue to grow.

Despite its provocative title Five Reasons Why Your Company Doesn’t Need a Social Media Policy by Michael Hyatt provides a good overview of the sort of discussion every business should be having about the use of social media by its members. Whilst claiming to argue against the need for any policy, what Michael seems to be calling for is a common sense approach. Something like the recently published Online social media principles from The Coca Cola Company perhaps.

The ability to be heard on-line doesn’t suddenly turn employees into vandals. Social media is just the latest new means for communicating and people should be encouraged to use it. However, it is probably worth pointing out some of the particular peculiarities of the on-line world; the speed at which word can spread, the increased visibility and the permanence of the record. It might also be worth reminding everyone that the old rules of courtesy and responsibility still apply.

Even if you eventually decide that your policy is to have no policy, every organisation needs to spend some time this year thinking about the possibilities, the opportunities and the risks, presented by social media and how they are best addressed.

The GNIUS Approach To Social Media

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 6:07 pm Social Media Tagged with: communication, Employee Engagement, GNIUS, Social Media, Strategy

Jan 112010

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