(^135) ■
REVIEW AND HANDS-ON
Look back at Table 4.1, in Chapter 4. Social platform providers such as Jive
Software and Socialtext provide tools and technology that are aimed at making it
easier for cross-functional teams—inside or outside the organization—to form and
accomplish real work. If there is one thing that will drive the rapid adoption of best
practices, it’s making those best practices easier to adopt than to ignore. Collaboration
is often seen—rightly or wrongly—as harder, or slower, than working alone. The smart
use of appropriate technology can go a long way toward addressing—and correcting if
needed—this condition.
Consider Socialtext as an example of a tool that makes it easier for people to
work together across an organization. Socialtext provides a basic “community” frame-
work built around a familiar profi le model. The community is typically the organiza-
tion itself, and the profi les are those of the people who work within it. Each participant
has a basic set of social tools—a shared workspace, the ability to share basic forms of
content, and utility/functional applications including things like shared calendars. The
result is a complete set of identity and content production tools that facilitate the col-
laborative and creative processes.
Ross Mayfield
Ross Mayfield is the founder and Chairman of Socialtext, a workplace collaboration platform. You
can follow Ross on Twitter (@ross) and read his blog here:
http://ross.typepad.com/In summary, the relationship between your listening program, social applica-
tions, and your business processes is critical. Managing your business with the inclu-
sion of social technologies opens up the opportunity for collaboration with customers
through both the response steps and the fi nal disposition of reviewed and tracked issues.
Both of these open the possibility of collaboration between customers or stakeholders
and the (employees of) the fi rm or organization. Collaboration occurs between custom-
ers themselves as well as between the people within your fi rm or organization. The con-
nected nature of the collaborative process again underscores the cross-functional impact
of social media and the rationale for moving toward a social business framework.
Review and Hands-On
This chapter covered the integration of active listening and formalized Social CRM
into the business decision-making processes that drive an organization. Most impor-
tant is to recognize that the source of customer or constituent conversations—the spe-
cifi c things that people will convey to others through social media that relate to your
brand, product, service, or cause—are driven more by your organizational processes
Ross Mayfield
Ross Mayfield is the founder and Chairman of Socialtext, a workplace collaboration platform. You
can follow Ross on Twitter (@ross) and read his blog here:
http://ross.typepad.com/