Well, we've just dipped our well manicured corporate toes in the dimly lit pool of microblogging, by signing up for an account on Twitter.
I'm not yet sure of the business value of this. Yes, it's an interesting platform for p2p comms, and I've even heard it holds some value for those b2c.
However I wait to see whether we get much out of it. It's success depends on who else has signed up on the site, and our stakeholders - hedge fund managers, NGOs, business journos and the like - are not reknowned for their early adoption of social media. (OK, by now it's not really early adoption, but you know what I mean...)
If the chickens aren't in the yard, there's no point scattering the corn.
People looking for a job on our student or graduate placements schemes may very well come across us though, so that's a good thing. Mind you, it's a difficult thing trying not to come across as "getting on down with the cool kids". That's not really a core brand value for a mining company such as ours, trust me.
We'll see how we go over the next few months. And who knows, getting our feet wet may well prove to have some payback. (Probably more so than stretching this particular metaphor).
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Friday, 1 February 2008
Am I allowed to....?
We'll it's no news to anyone watching the financial pages since before Christmas that we've been under the watchful eye of the UK Takeover Panel. This is because of a proposal by BHP Billiton, another company in the mining sector.
One of the unexpected results of this, is the change in what we're allowed to talk about (hence the lack of postings here... yeah, I know) and what we're definitely not.
Blogging (however informal) by someone in a company which is in a potential takeover/merger situation can lead to a breach of all sorts of regulations, both here in the and abroad. The UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA), the Takeover Panel, and lots of corporate lawyers and bankers take a very dim view of people within such a company issuing potentially misleading or unverifiable statements. Our poor lawyers are checking every piece of marketing communications at the moment that goes out from us - and I think they're getting a bit bored writing "source, please" on the bottom of every email!
Of course, I've now got to submit this post to them for approval. No doubt there will be a comment in due course asking for my sources.
*sigh*
One of the unexpected results of this, is the change in what we're allowed to talk about (hence the lack of postings here... yeah, I know) and what we're definitely not.
Blogging (however informal) by someone in a company which is in a potential takeover/merger situation can lead to a breach of all sorts of regulations, both here in the and abroad. The UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA), the Takeover Panel, and lots of corporate lawyers and bankers take a very dim view of people within such a company issuing potentially misleading or unverifiable statements. Our poor lawyers are checking every piece of marketing communications at the moment that goes out from us - and I think they're getting a bit bored writing "source, please" on the bottom of every email!
Of course, I've now got to submit this post to them for approval. No doubt there will be a comment in due course asking for my sources.
*sigh*
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
Enterprise 2.0 - "show me the money..."
I spent a day or 2 last week in sunny Cologne, at a Red Dot Day summit thing (nice picture, non?). We use Red Dot Web CMS pretty heavily here at Rio Tinto, it drives www.riotinto.com, www.riotintodiamonds.com, www.riotintoironore.com, www.graduates.riotinto.com, www.procurement.riotinto.com, and all sorts of other exciting corporate sites.
Reddot is a product now of OpenText, who are heavily in the corporate IM space, and have business relationships with all sorts of people, including SAP. No surprise, we do a lot of work with SAP here at Rio Tinto.
One of the most telling aspects of the day, was the number of speakers hammering on about "Enterprise 2.0" , including SAP.
Listen people, that thing on the horizon... you know, sails, hull and stuff... that'll be the boat that's already sailed!
There were 2 speakers (who really should know better) going on about now that 23 year olds can access Facebook and MySpace at home, they'll expect all their business tools to work in the same way - that they'll expect corporate intranet and portal applications to have the same functionality. The main crux of their argument was that people expect work to do the same things as home.
Well, at home I like sitting in my pants in front of the telly, watching repeats of Eastenders, drinking red wine. If I did any of those things at work, I'd be fired. Well, laughed at, and then fired.
Life doesn't work that way. There are lots of things that people do at home that they don't expect to do at work. And vice versa really. It's all a matter of context. Yes, there is some functionality in social media sites that might work in a corporate environment, but a lot of it is completely inappropriate. Seriously, do we really want someone in our accounts department going round "biting chumps"?
Of more importance I think, is the concept of standing up for what you believe and think, and letting your peers see this. Translating to a work environment, knowing a colleagues position on a particular policy for instance, and being able to challenge and discuss this with others is a healthy and positive thing. To be able to do this openly, across time zones, and with a degree of informality that social media sites encourage should be seen as a largely positive thing to most large companies.
This is where the presenters at last week's conference completely missed the boat. They confuse function, content and outcome. Enterprise 2.0 *isn't* about bringing Bebo or Facebook into work. It's about rethinking the way that you collaborate with your colleagues, and how the enterprise manages its knowledge and processes.
Sharing my list of favourite friends, where I went on holiday, and giving "mega hugs" to people should only happen when I'm at home. Preferably in my pants.
Reddot is a product now of OpenText, who are heavily in the corporate IM space, and have business relationships with all sorts of people, including SAP. No surprise, we do a lot of work with SAP here at Rio Tinto.
One of the most telling aspects of the day, was the number of speakers hammering on about "Enterprise 2.0" , including SAP.
Listen people, that thing on the horizon... you know, sails, hull and stuff... that'll be the boat that's already sailed!
There were 2 speakers (who really should know better) going on about now that 23 year olds can access Facebook and MySpace at home, they'll expect all their business tools to work in the same way - that they'll expect corporate intranet and portal applications to have the same functionality. The main crux of their argument was that people expect work to do the same things as home.
Well, at home I like sitting in my pants in front of the telly, watching repeats of Eastenders, drinking red wine. If I did any of those things at work, I'd be fired. Well, laughed at, and then fired.
Life doesn't work that way. There are lots of things that people do at home that they don't expect to do at work. And vice versa really. It's all a matter of context. Yes, there is some functionality in social media sites that might work in a corporate environment, but a lot of it is completely inappropriate. Seriously, do we really want someone in our accounts department going round "biting chumps"?
Of more importance I think, is the concept of standing up for what you believe and think, and letting your peers see this. Translating to a work environment, knowing a colleagues position on a particular policy for instance, and being able to challenge and discuss this with others is a healthy and positive thing. To be able to do this openly, across time zones, and with a degree of informality that social media sites encourage should be seen as a largely positive thing to most large companies.
This is where the presenters at last week's conference completely missed the boat. They confuse function, content and outcome. Enterprise 2.0 *isn't* about bringing Bebo or Facebook into work. It's about rethinking the way that you collaborate with your colleagues, and how the enterprise manages its knowledge and processes.
Sharing my list of favourite friends, where I went on holiday, and giving "mega hugs" to people should only happen when I'm at home. Preferably in my pants.
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Well, long time no post - apologies.
And it's an interesting point: when should you post to a blog, how often do you need to keep coming back to add new content?
Blogging is becoming more frequent here at work, and one of the issues that we're facing is what is an acceptable level of activity before we step in and say that a blogger needs to do something to keep it alive.
Maybe we shouldn't do anything...? The content that's already up there may be relevant to others, and that it's not being updated any more may not necessarily be an issue.
We're still working our way through this. There probably isn't a correct answer, and we're probably going to have to just suck it and see.
And it's an interesting point: when should you post to a blog, how often do you need to keep coming back to add new content?
Blogging is becoming more frequent here at work, and one of the issues that we're facing is what is an acceptable level of activity before we step in and say that a blogger needs to do something to keep it alive.
Maybe we shouldn't do anything...? The content that's already up there may be relevant to others, and that it's not being updated any more may not necessarily be an issue.
We're still working our way through this. There probably isn't a correct answer, and we're probably going to have to just suck it and see.
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Marriott, or not
I've been watching the new blog on Marriott.com written by Bill Marriott, their 70+ year old CEO. Oh dear, where to start....
It's blatently just not a blog. There is very little attempt to engage with their visitors, and the engagement that there is consists of token replies to the odd comment. You'll need to really hunt to find any, trust me....
Much is made of the "audio version" of his blog -whereas in fact, the blog actually is a transcript of what appears to be a scripted audio show (see Alistair Cooke's Letters from America for a better example of this medium). There is absolutely nothing wrong in publishing regular audio updates from senior management (albeit that they're really heavily scripted) and it's a really useful channel for engagement. It's also a really good idea to provide transcripts of these for people who don't want to, or aren't able to, hear the audio. So far so good - we have the nice basics of a good podcast here.
The problem for me comes when this transcript is then turned into a blog, by the addition of comments and the attempt to add an element of chronology. The comments are then so heavily editted (and I really do mean heavily - see if you can spot anything critical) that they are meaningless. Virtually all the comments are from people saying:
1) how fantastic Bill is for writing a blog (seriously, if you think he's writing any of it, then you deserve to believe it!)
2) how fantastic Marriott staff were in helping them when they stayed there
3) re-affirming whatever apple-pie subject Bill was whittering on about
Anyhoo, up to this point, I'd been thinking we just had another large corporate who's PR/ad agency thought they should climb aboard the social web gravy train, and who's marketing department had let them.
And then, I started to see all the praise for the blog not only in the US media, but also (to their eternal shame) in a number of social media commentary blogs. Dear Lord people! What on earth has possessed you NOT to critique this! Have you been caught up in the homespun nostalgia and general schmaltzy quality of his posts (typically the The Importance of Working Hard and Doing Chores), or you afraid to criticise because it's been written by a very endearing pensioner (worth, at my best guess, in excess of $1.2billion)? More worringly thought, have you just completely lost any idea of what a blog should be?
If this is the future of corporate blogging, then we're all doomed!
It's blatently just not a blog. There is very little attempt to engage with their visitors, and the engagement that there is consists of token replies to the odd comment. You'll need to really hunt to find any, trust me....
Much is made of the "audio version" of his blog -whereas in fact, the blog actually is a transcript of what appears to be a scripted audio show (see Alistair Cooke's Letters from America for a better example of this medium). There is absolutely nothing wrong in publishing regular audio updates from senior management (albeit that they're really heavily scripted) and it's a really useful channel for engagement. It's also a really good idea to provide transcripts of these for people who don't want to, or aren't able to, hear the audio. So far so good - we have the nice basics of a good podcast here.
The problem for me comes when this transcript is then turned into a blog, by the addition of comments and the attempt to add an element of chronology. The comments are then so heavily editted (and I really do mean heavily - see if you can spot anything critical) that they are meaningless. Virtually all the comments are from people saying:
1) how fantastic Bill is for writing a blog (seriously, if you think he's writing any of it, then you deserve to believe it!)
2) how fantastic Marriott staff were in helping them when they stayed there
3) re-affirming whatever apple-pie subject Bill was whittering on about
Anyhoo, up to this point, I'd been thinking we just had another large corporate who's PR/ad agency thought they should climb aboard the social web gravy train, and who's marketing department had let them.
And then, I started to see all the praise for the blog not only in the US media, but also (to their eternal shame) in a number of social media commentary blogs. Dear Lord people! What on earth has possessed you NOT to critique this! Have you been caught up in the homespun nostalgia and general schmaltzy quality of his posts (typically the The Importance of Working Hard and Doing Chores), or you afraid to criticise because it's been written by a very endearing pensioner (worth, at my best guess, in excess of $1.2billion)? More worringly thought, have you just completely lost any idea of what a blog should be?
If this is the future of corporate blogging, then we're all doomed!
Monday, 30 July 2007
Whole Foods CEO forum postings
I was facinated to read about Whole Foods' recent monumental cock up over posting to financial forums....
"Whole Foods Market boss John Mackey has apologised for the renegade online PR campaign he conducted to boost his company’s image on financial messageboards.
In a statement, Mackey asked for shareholders’ forgiveness over his anonymous postings, which were uncovered last week and are now being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission: "I sincerely apologize to all Whole Foods Market stakeholders for my error in judgment in anonymously participating on online financial message boards. I am very sorry and I ask our stakeholders to please forgive me." All in all, it doesn’t look good for the businessman."
(extract from e-consultancy.com. Click here to read the Whole Story)
According to a number of sites, Mackey had registered on Yahoo and was happily talking his own (listed) company up, and dissing his biggest competitor, Wild Oats. Apparently he happily went about this for 8 years. And then proceeded to try to buy Wild Oats, also a listed company.
If this is true, apart from it being ethically suspect (the digital equivalent of anonymously fly-posting your neighbourhood bitching about a neighbour you don't like) it would appear to be on very ropey legal grounds. He should have clearly identified who he was when he posted about his own company, as a person who was clearly in receipt of confidential information - here in the UK he would have been an "insider" and his comments on the company's performance now or in the future are very heavily regulated.
Well, the US regulators and judicial system have now started their own investigations. This does make for interesting reading on Mackey's own blog on the Whole Foods website and the company's response to the FTC's investigations.
More interesting however is the company's share price, today trading at the US$36 mark, down from a high of $68 or so in October 2006, and from a price of mid $40s when the story broke.
"Whole Foods Market boss John Mackey has apologised for the renegade online PR campaign he conducted to boost his company’s image on financial messageboards.
In a statement, Mackey asked for shareholders’ forgiveness over his anonymous postings, which were uncovered last week and are now being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission: "I sincerely apologize to all Whole Foods Market stakeholders for my error in judgment in anonymously participating on online financial message boards. I am very sorry and I ask our stakeholders to please forgive me." All in all, it doesn’t look good for the businessman."
(extract from e-consultancy.com. Click here to read the Whole Story)
According to a number of sites, Mackey had registered on Yahoo and was happily talking his own (listed) company up, and dissing his biggest competitor, Wild Oats. Apparently he happily went about this for 8 years. And then proceeded to try to buy Wild Oats, also a listed company.
If this is true, apart from it being ethically suspect (the digital equivalent of anonymously fly-posting your neighbourhood bitching about a neighbour you don't like) it would appear to be on very ropey legal grounds. He should have clearly identified who he was when he posted about his own company, as a person who was clearly in receipt of confidential information - here in the UK he would have been an "insider" and his comments on the company's performance now or in the future are very heavily regulated.
Well, the US regulators and judicial system have now started their own investigations. This does make for interesting reading on Mackey's own blog on the Whole Foods website and the company's response to the FTC's investigations.
More interesting however is the company's share price, today trading at the US$36 mark, down from a high of $68 or so in October 2006, and from a price of mid $40s when the story broke.
Monday, 23 July 2007
Just who *is* Jesus Cuevas on Facebook.com?
And who thought it was a good idea to let him have access to both a digital camera, and an internet connection?
And who thought it was a good idea to let him have access to both a digital camera, and an internet connection?
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