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Netflix Continues a Culture of Values Congruence

Netflix spends considerable effort to maintain a culture of values congruence.  By aligning employees actions with their values, Netflix can build what I think is the most effective competitive advantage, a culture of trust.   Its values are action oriented and drive performance management and talent management across the company.

This Netflix slide deck explains how they maintain their culture.  After reading it several months ago, I have recommended it to several friends and colleagues. I didn’t want my faithful readers to miss the benefits, so I have embedded the slides below.

How different would the world be if all employers/managers were this focused on driving results from its teams?

Freedom And Culture At Netflix

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Popularity: 1% [?]

What is Inside the Mind of Gen Y?

A VP at my company sent me an article from Catalyst, a magazine about Ohio CPAs asking for the top three points of the article. The article entitled, “Inside the Minds of Young CPAs” (subscription needed) is quite interesting.  These young CPAs express some of the values of Gen Y workers, but not all.  Below I have summarized the top three thoughts from the article and I added the top three thoughts I find in the blogosphere.
 
Points from “Inside the Minds of Young CPA’s”:
  1. Frequent and candid feedback is important.  Feedback isn’t just for formal quarterly items. Underlying theme: Gen Y wants to grow. Enable them to do so by providing feedback.
  2. Gen Y doesn’t buy into the face time. They buy into goals and their associated results.  Don’t expect a 50 hour work week unless there is 50 hours of actual work to be done.
  3. Promotions are not about long hours, experience and timing. They are about performance, initiative, leadership and demonstrations of learning.  Poignant quote: “When you can show you are ready to lead and coach new hires, that’s when they’ll consider promoting you.”
Points about Gen Y from the Blogosphere:
  1. Employee Evolution: Social Media is a collaboration tool.  It will do to corporate relationships and information sharing what E-mail did to the mail room.
  2. Modite: Job hopping is good for your career. Get paid what you are worth. Over Perform. Be risky. Turn down job offers.
  3. Newly Corporate: Relationships matter more than delivery.  He who reads the manual is the expert.  Email and interruptions are the enemy of productivity. 
Gen X came into the workplace thinking they would change things, but eventually played by the “boomer’s” rules.  Will Gen Y have a lasting impact? 
 
My answer is yes because they typically are more productive because they are “digital natives.”
What do you think about these topics?  Is the corporate world on its way?

Popularity: 9% [?]

Save ROI from Going to the Dead Pool!

There have been some wise thoughts about Social Media ROI that resonate with me from my finance background that are a nice corollary to Kristen’s arguments: Social Networking is not about ROI. 

 Peter Kim, a former Forrester Social Media analyst said:

“Calculating ROI from social media efforts is no different.

If ROI doesn’t apply to social media marketing, then social media should not be used for marketing.”

 Jason responded by saying he thinks that the social media ROI issue is:

“a failure of data analysis, not a failure of marketing.”

Return on investment is a measure that should be used sparingly but tested often, relationships are not calculated in ROI, but money generated from those relationships and the cost of maintaining them can be.  Just like sales teams monitor ROI by choosing Webex instead of flying to a meeting in Denver.

If you have ever been a consultant, you’ve had to log your hours to client numbers, and account numbers and project numbers.  Social media is no different. 

I think the capabilities to measure social media efforts online will far surpass the ability for corporations to measure ROI on old media marketing: magazines, newspapers, television. 

Sure, ROI shouldn’t be the driving motivator in interacting with real humans, but to sustain a business a measure like ROI sure does enable business to thrive.  Just don’t let such a great measure of value go the way of now generic terms like “Web 2.0.”

Popularity: 11% [?]

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Social Software 2008

Gartner just released its 2008 Magic Quadrant for Social Software.  I stumbled upon

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Social Software 2008:

It is interesting how Microsoft and IBM are definitive challengers and Jive Software/Atlassian/Socialtextare all just barely visionaries.  I find the chart interesting because the “ability to execute” portion of the measurement has a heavy sales and market penetration component.  Obviously IBM and Microsoft will be able to excel here by bundling software with Office or Lotus Notes. 

The Magic Quadrant shows us that no clear leader in this space(the upper right quadrant) exists.  Who will be the first to move into that coveted upper right corner?

So what do you think of how the product companies ended up on the chart?  No clear leader, a lot of consolidation to occur for sure.  If you were an IT spend director, where would you spend your Enterprise 2.0 budget?

Popularity: 17% [?]

How do you Implement an Internal Social Network?

I loved Jeremiah Owang’s Post about implementing a social network, i wanted to A. catelogue it someplace i could find it easily, and B. share it all with you!  So here it is. Thanks Jeremiah for your wisdom… Also the book Groundswell helps expand on these points as well, so if you want more info, check that out. 

Best Buy’s social media push to become the Enterprise 2.0 company of the year seems to be paying big rewards.  BlueShirt Nation, aptly named based on the blue shirts of store employees, is Best Buy’s social network that start off with the hope of becoming a place where execs could learn about marketing from employees.

Best Buy was able to get tangible and measureable results from the deployment of social media within the company.

  • Used the enterprise social network to increase enrollment in the 401(k) plan by through a video contest.
  • Employee turnover dropped drastically among the employees using the social network. Turnover fell from double digits to 8%.
  • Quick feedback from employees helped management to steer policy around employee desires.
  • Less employee turnover is key for maintaining employee productivity levels high

How do you implement an Internal Social Network?

  1. Start with a discussion about your understanding of social media tool’s productivity enhancement effect on the enterprise. (A list of questions for discussion, and the projected increase in spend on social networks)
  2. Discuss your goals and intent. Best Buy provides some excellent examples of good measurable goals. Employee retention. Knowledge sharing.  Communication outlet. Management insight. Product-Idea generation. Choose some goals, and measure it! Measure, measure, measure!
  3. Discuss which platform to use to engage your community. There are many free social media platforms, and there are many other paid services.  Chris Brogan does a great job explaining the how to and the what to use when in the social media starting point.
  4. Hire a community manager. No, not a techy type to program the thing, just someone who is a specialist in engaging the community, and preferably knows something about your company and employees. 
  5. Implement. Put it out there and engage the community. Trust them, encourage them to use the new productivity tools responsibly, heck you hired them, you trust them enough with your company’s assets, you should trust them enough with to speak with respect and respect the company’s time.
  6. Assess.  Monitor your progress against your goals, and design new ones after hitting the previous goals.  Enjoy the conversation!

Best Buy did it!  Why not you?! Enterprise 2.0 is the next large wave in productivity enhancements in the work place. How do you see them influencing your work place?

Popularity: 19% [?]

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