I recently attended the Connect HR Unconference #CHRU4 “The power of a socially engaged organisation”. A great event and one that had a very unique approach to capturing the minutes from the days conversations. The minutes were captured by a team of artists from Creative Connection and at the end of the day I took a close up video of the minutes to capture the images and words that had been recorded. I had no idea what I was going to do with the video and after some technical issues and some fab support from Jon Bartlett aka @Projectlibero we managed to get the video on YouTube.
I’ve watched the video a few times and I think I’ll be able to get some good blogs out of the content but in the meantime I thought I’d share the video and just highlight some phrases that really stood out for me;
- I hope the connections made today will last
- Find your tribe
- Figure out your own beliefs
- Not everything that counts can be counted
- Super charged social media learning
- Dispersion of authority
- Conversation is the new currency
- Words are all we have
- Generate your own content and share it with the world
- You can’t force engagement but you can stimulate it
- Set them free stop shutting the conversation down
- True change is in the hands of employees
- Give people a voice – freedom not fear = a democratic workplace
- I work best when I’m trusted
- How do you get an organisation to trust what you are saying?
- Can tools change culture or does culture change with new tools
- Tackling paranoia around transparency and collaboration
- Overcoming resistance
- You can’t force social
As you can see there are some great themes here worth discussing in more detail and there’s plenty more; these were just the bits that really stood out to me. I’ll be following this up with a post on the “You can’t force social” theme but in the meantime enjoy the video and let me know if these are the stand outs for you as well or if there are any others that you’ve spotted and are worth highlighting in the comments below.
It’s Friday so that means I can access your blog @ work Mike – bizarro! It’s been blogged the rest of the week! I will however have to check the video at home!
However, looking at some of the themes you’ve quoted some of them really resonate with me!
Find your tribe: I’m a massive believer in tribes, check out Seth Godin’s brilliant book Tribes (and his blog for that matter sethgodin.typepad.com). I think having groups of like minded people who get together, debate, encourage, challenge and inspire each other is so important in everything we do, life and work. I like to think I have several tribes at work and outside also. I sometimes think of them as herds, but I think I got this from Ice Age 2!
Tools versus Culture change versus tools: As you know from what’s been happening here that simply having a tool doesnt necessarily mean that the culture will change. Our internal forum tool Best Quest is a great tool (for us) but from a cultural perspective there thousands of people still not using it within the business. I guess to be seen as having changed the culture of the business then vastly more people would be using it. This kind of leads to the You can’t force social topic. We talk when we want to talk, we make friends with people that we want to , that we like and when we feel the need. This is the same in the real world and virtually. The same as many things in this area, a catch 22 situation is apparent. People need to see the value in a tool before they commit to it. FaceBook only become a global phenomenon becuase people saw their friends were using it to stay connected and they wanted to be a part of it. The same is true in internal social networks. If people feel they’re missing out then they’ll make more of an effort to be involved.
Words are all we have – Cat Stevens said this, and it was bastardised by Boyzone. This in itself is telling in that Cat Stevens message was a purposeful one and Boyzone turned it into a schmaltzy pop song, but the message remains if you read the words and ignore the latters bubblegum sentiment. Classing myself as a bit of a bedroom songwriter I think this is a really powerful statement, although I’m not sure of the context here, not being able to see the video yet!
Look forward to reading your follow up about forcing social.
Hope things is good in the new gig!
Nick