Regardless of where you want to position yourself in social media in the future, you can make a difference where you are right now, by sharing what you already know. In addition, how can you build up a core competency and weave social media goodness into it?

Little Lola guards her social media candy,
dreaming of the day she will be a social media rockstar
Image courtesy of virtual chameleon Iron Fillings

Consider your role, your area of expertise and ask yourself how you can sprinkle some social media wonderment? If you know something about the benefits of social media and social networking within the enterprise (or wherever) are you sharing it with your colleagues?

Example 1. My (very clever) husband was able to a case study group at Uni to use a wiki. He didn’t just send them a link. He uploaded material that was doing the email rounds, then sat down with them to demonstrate how to use it and won them over. They started using the wiki straight away for their project. No more manic email sending and sorting.

Example 2. As Kerry McGuire points out in her recent post on Learning and social media, the company we work for has a program & community called BlueIQ where we are able to volunteer as Ambassadors for social media. We have a community of people around the world who share what they know with others, a wiki with information and case studies – and I am trying to make a more concerted effort to create short informal session with my project team members, my own colleagues and other groups I am connected with by booking some dates in.

It doesn’t take much to make a little bit of social media work. You don’t need a grand plan to share a little bit of knowledge. How can you make it work where you are right now? Are you guarding your candy or are you investing your knowledge in people who will benefit?

a) encourage people to think “out of the box”

b) provide the right tools and process

c) apply innovative thinking to everyday work (not just specific projects)

Although there may be times where teams are set up and dedicate themselves to specific research or projects, there is a wonderful opportunity for organisations to tap into ideas – globally – using web2.0 collaboration tools and techniques. In addition, employees could be better encouraged to see themselves as innovative workers and apply creative thinking to everyday problems.

Image courtesy of Alice Bartlett

Irving Wladawsky-Berger summed it up nicely in a post on Innovation Teams 2.0 this week.

“In today’s fiercely competitive, global world, how can you afford to take your best people out of their jobs for a chunk of time to work on innovation, no matter how important that might be? Many line managers will be against such a program. They need their best people doing their jobs, running operations, dealing with clients, developing products. They cannot afford to let them go for weeks at a time. They may even argue that if they let their people participate in such programs for the good of the company, it could seriously jeopardize their ability to make the quarter.

I think that we can address these valid concerns in a kind of Team Challenge 2.0. I have become convinced that most highly talented people, – especially those destined for high management and technical positions, – are essentially ambidextrous when it comes to their work. They are able to do their day jobs with flying colors, while simultaneously participating in innovation activities, as part of virtual teams working with their equally talented colleagues across the business and around the world on complex, strategic company problems.

In general, the teams only need to meet physically two or three times for a few days – when the project is first formed, when presenting the final recommendations to top management, and perhaps once in between, – but the rest of the time they are collaborating over the Web, while continuing to do their normal job.

Where will overworked employees, already straining to keep some semblance of work-life balance, find the time for these additional innovation activities? This is another valid concern, but in fact, most talented people are already involved in multiple work related activities. They somehow make the time to participate in professional organizations, go to conferences, give speeches, and make a name for themselves in their industry and discipline, while continuing to be top performers in their day jobs. It is a big part of why they are on executive and technical resources tracks. It is why they get noticed, both within their own company as well as by competitors that will undoubtedly try to hire them.

Talented people are full of innovative ideas anyway. That is what makes them so good at their jobs. The key question is whether their companies will be smart enough to provide the right environment to help harvest all this creative energy. Will the company capture and take advantage of all this innovation by providing the right technologies, tools and platforms, as well as a disciplined, well organized innovation process, along the lines of X-Teams or Team Challenge?”

I was also reading about an interview with AG Lafley of Procter & Gamble in the New York Times (hat tip to Rick Singer)

Q. And yet only half of your product innovations succeed. Why isn’t the rate higher?
A. I don’t really want it to be. Human nature is such that, if we push our people to drive the batting average up, they’ll try to hit more safely, take a shorter swing, go for the singles instead of home runs. But we try to set milestones that innovations must meet at every step along the development process. As soon as they miss one, we allocate the resources to another product moving through the funnel. That’s another difference from the old days, when P.& G. let bad ideas go too far.

Do you think innovation should be part of everything we do? Should we always be considering (risky?) new approaches, techniques for improvement and even radical changes to existing solutions?

We are all busy whether it be children, work, or commitments outside of work. So I depend on the technical support and workplace flexibility I have in place, so that I can give my best to my family and my employer.

1. Flexible working arrangements. The ability to work from home at times, flexible working hours.
2. Wi-Fi set up at home, so I can quickly check emails on the go via my Thinkpad or iPod.
3. Social media & networking eg
   • Twitter keeps me in touch with a collective of interesting minds and information
     
   • Corporate blogging site and wikis – I have met some wonderful minds, discovered some interesting projects relative to my work happening in different countries. I have met mentors and friends and further developed those friendships on Twitter, Facebook, Instant Messaging, corporate social networking tools and Secondlife.
   • My blog. It gives me a chance to collect my thoughts, notepad my ramblings, express myself, and hear from you in the comments you leave
   • GoogleReader for my RSS feeds so I can keep up with my favourite blogs. I have even created a category in my reader called “Growth”, for half a dozen of my must read blogs that particularly inspire me, stretching my mind and imagination. If I am really busy, I only read my Growth posts in the morning.
   • Del.icio.us and Dogear for social bookmarking. I can tag my bookmarks with keywords for quick reference, share them, and find URL goodness delivered to me when I log in when others share with me!
   • Various other tools I use at work to share files, podcasts I download (not many…I don’t get much time to listen to them)…and on the list goes. Not video blogging right now tho, I tried and it took too long.

Do I abuse the liberty of being able to work from home or spend hours on Facebook because I can? Absolutely not!
Do I work more than three days per week? Well, err yes, I do…not necessarily because I have to, but because I choose to get involved with some interesting, worthwhile projects outside the scope of my day job.
Do I learn much from these tools? Absolutely yes! Some days it is a case of information overload. My bookshelf has grown as a result and I have become involved in new creative endeavours too.

I am so glad I live a life where my work, my interests and my life intersect and overflow. I’m grateful for the days I can work from home with a sick child or attend an important school event. I’m glad for the people I meet and the precious moments I can spend with my family. The small investment I have made in developing my online profile has benefited me in terms of the knowledge I have acquired and the friendships I have made tremendously. And my employer reaps the rewards of these connections as I apply it to the projects I work on.

As for keeping a balance with family and work, I can’t say that it’s easy and I make various adjustments on a daily basis. I try to prepare healthy meals with the sanity pizza thrown in for good measure, I remember to ask for help, have great friendships, I try to rest (hmmm..must do that more often) and I feed my spirit. It works for us.

So for those overwhelmed with information and social networks, here are a couple of pointers.

10 Simple Productivity Tips for Bloggers
There were some nice tips here for Bloggers (hat tip to Chris Brogan on Twitter), including using your feed reader as an in-box, and writing more than you publish. In a nutshell:

1. Write more than you publish.
2. Turn off auto-notifiers.
3. Check emails less often, but deal with more when you do.
4. Write as much as possible when you’re feeling creative.
5. Use your feed reader as an all-in-one inbox.
6. Process different types of tasks in batches.
7. Work out a ‘To Post’ list.
8. Spend less time reading feeds.
9. Sketch posts before filling in the detail.

credit: August Boehm

• Best Use of Blogs, Wikis, or Other Content-Sharing Tools for Learning
• Best Use of Games for Learning
• Best Use of Mobile Learning
• Best Use of Video for Learning
• Best Use of Virtual Worlds for Learning

Methods of learning are obviously changing, and this makes my role in Learning Services and Knowledge & Collaboration even more interesting (and challenging for the year ahead.)

I’m expecting to see more companies implement structured programs and modify existing learning models this year to accommodate informal learning styles. Many existing learning programs fail to engage the audience or harness the expertise “in the room”. I think we will see more people using blended learning models to include blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds etc in more deliberate, constructive, program driven initiatives, something I’m happy to say we are already beginning to see at IBM.

As more companies allow employees access to social media, more support for management and employee guidelines will ensue. Frontline managers will be taught more about online impression management, benefits of using social networks to capture tacit knowledge and build community – and ways to facilitate attention management, trust and authenticity.

The benefits are great, especially as more people begin to work from home and move to part-time hours. So many people talk about using social media to attract Gen Y (the Net Gen), but the maturing workforce will become even more dependent on social media to support lifestyle changes.

Learning, Knowledge and Collaboration – they are becoming even more entwined and I think learning of the future will be so much more engaging, innovative, social and learner-driven. Yes, I think it should be a good year ahead!