It’s our Birthday – Top Learnings of Bromford Social Media Year One

Last night – at our Board – the Chair opened the meeting with a question that I was utterly unprepared for.

“Does anyone have an objection to people tweeting during this meeting? As long as they keep the comments relevant to the items being discussed?”.

A couple of eyebrows were raised. But nobody objected.

This is our journey so far.

12 months ago – nobody had access to social media at Bromford. Today everybody does. Unrestricted.

My hybrid work/personal twitter account @paulbromford was created exactly 1 year ago. Our Facebook pages opened 1 year ago. Our 1st blog appeared 1 year ago.

We still have no policy as such. There is no big list of rules. It’s a system run on trust and common sense rather than rules and procedure.

This has been Bromford Social Media Year 1 and these are my personal takeaways.
1 – Get your key leaders on board.  If you do that – things will catch fire. There is no need to get everyone on side with you. Just a few. The enthusiasts. If you get your CEO on board , you get a gold star.  Your CEO will legitimise it for everyone else and will be the fastest route to mass acceptance.

2 – Trust people. We have had unrestricted access to social media and one of our most productive years ever. People don’t come to work to sit on facebook all day. They come to do a good job. Believe in that. If you have disengaged employees just do your job and deal with it. Don’t be lazy and blame social media.

3 – Don’t listen to people who want policies, procedures and return on investment. Look – I struggle to be constructive here .  I’m not being unkind but they just don’t get it. You concentrate on being the innovator and they will catch up eventually. When they see the party going on they will want to join. Just get on and organize the party.

4 – Give people a playground. For us it was Yammer. Our internal social network. For many of our customers and colleagues their first experience of social networking has been on Yammer. It’s a very short step for colleagues to take from sharing what they are up to at work with other colleagues – and then moving that activity to Twitter , Facebook and our current growth area – blogging.

5 – Trust customers. They don’t get out of bed in the morning with the intent to bring us down. Really!  You will be surprised. Most people like you and appreciate your transparency. Start from that point and don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. And customers don’t really expect a response when they do criticize you on Facebook. Surprise them. Talk to them. They like it.

6 - Learn from others. Twitter is such a friendly and sharing community. Nobody wants to see anyone fail. If you are stuck just ask someone. We still do on a daily basis and I’m sure we will still be doing in 3 years time. Trust the community – not consultants.

So its our Birthday.

Year Two starts today.

Two things you can’t say on Twitter…..

There are two opinions that are definite no-go zones amongst the liberal left twitterati.

Opinions that , if you were to express them openly , could see you banished to the most remote, uninhabited and hostile parts of the social media planet.(Linkedin…..or even worse, Google+)

What are they?

1 – Saying you think the NHS is a bit wasteful really and maybe reform isn’t a totally bad idea

And

2 – Saying that despite the economy being tough –  you think that there are jobs out there

Well , I feel like starting the week with a bang. So I’m going to say that , I , Paul Taylor , believe that there are jobs out there.

OK – before you press “unfollow” let me explain:

• There are millions of jobs that have yet to be invented. I’m not going to expand that point here. You can read my previous blog on this. In fact if anyone knows a window cleaner who also cleans the house/irons clothes/and cuts hair please pass on my details.I’m recruiting.
• There are jobs – but often people don’t feel they have any skills , or feel terrified at the prospect of even applying.
• There are jobs – but people get fed up of applying when they get zero feedback and never hear anything about their application.
• And even in the area’s where jobs are very few -there are loads of volunteering and training opportunities that provide people with confidence , and improve their skills.

Very very few people don’t want to work – just sometimes it looks like it’s too much of a challenge. It feels like they will never make it.

Today see’s the launch of a new project that I am proud to be part of.

Connect , as we call it , opens it doors today as a private beta site. It’s a Social Network for Jobs, Skills and Opportunities. A virtual marketplace for the user to share their skills and develop their confidence , and get access to priority work opportunities. And it will also offer loads of volunteering positions, and give access to innovators who might just help people develop the next big idea. The jobs of the future.

We want it to be a supportive community which is about hope rather than despair. It’s about helping everyone be the very best they can be.

Initially all new Bromford tenants and their families will be given access to Connect. Additionally they can access a Skills Coach, whose job it is to inspire them to do the things that they thought they couldn’t. Whether its getting online for the first time , or preparing for an interview – we are hoping we can remove some of the many barriers that people face as they enter or return to work.

We’ll be letting you know how its going here and on the Connect Blog.

If you haven’t unfollowed me, of course.

Job Descriptions are rubbish…..My Top 5 new rules

The Worlds Worst Job Description. Ever

Did some work on some JD’s this week. I’ve been messing around them for some time – really struggling to articulate what I wanted.

On Wednesday morning at 9:40am it struck me. Somebody , somewhere , about 50 or 60 years ago – decided what a JD should look and feel like. A lot of words (management words, not real words) describing a lot of tasks and job accountability. I’ve never questioned it.

Need to recruit someone? Yeah! Lets make their eyes bleed with 3 pages of total bollocks.

Most of the work we are now doing , and the work the economy desperately needs, requires people to have creativity , a sense of autonomy and certainly a high degree of purpose.

So why on earth would we put things like this in a JD?

“The post holder will also perform any additional duties at the request of the Manager” (Which means – you need to do as I tell you – I don’t  trust you)

“You will be responsible for completing a daily report at 9:30am that should outline the tasks you and your team achieved in the previous day” (Which means – I don’t trust you or anyone else who works for me)

“Postholder will be required to attend in a punctual manner and be well-presented at all times” (Which means – I don’t trust you to get out of bed. Or even to have a wash)

I didn’t make these up by the way – just did a quick search.

I think at Bromford we have shown a fair degree of innovation. But there is much to be done. Here’s my (personal) new rules for JD’s:

1: 140 Character Job Purpose – If you can’t sum it up in that you are waffling. Plus – you can advertise it on Twitter

2: 1 Page Total – Anything more than that means we are in 20th Century Management mode and being over prescriptive – squeezing creativity out of someone before they have even applied.

3: Use a picture or graphic. A picture that describes the purpose. If you can’t think of a really bold , emotive image to accompany the job then you probably don’t need to even recruit someone. You can probably get a spreadsheet to do it.

4: Passionate language. If you really want someone to get out bed in the morning knowing EXACTLY what they are here to do there is nothing wrong with including words like “inspiring” “brave” or even “sexy”. I’ve gone a step further this week and included lyrics from George Benson’s “The Greatest Love Of All” (or Whitney if you prefer ) and Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power”. Ridiculous? Maybe. No problem , don’t apply!

5: Stick to how you want the person to make a difference. Describe how you want the successful applicant to make people FEEL rather than a list of things you want them to do. I’ve amended one JD to say to I want them “to inspire people each and every day”. That’s their purpose. How they do that it is entirely up to them.

I’m not saying this is right. But let’s all try something different. There has to be a better way.

I’m with our HR team on Monday finishing them off. Wonder if Public Enemy will make the final cut?

12 Weeks To Change Your Online Life (or hand your iPad back…)

I’ve had a breakthrough that I want to share.

Last Week  I threw down a special challenge to some of our Board Members and Customer Stakeholders who we had struggled to get engaged in Online collaboration and Social Media.

3 Rules

1. I’ll loan you an iPad for 12 Weeks.
2. If it doesn’t change your life I will have it back. I will never mention Social Media to you again.
3. But if you admit it changes your life and you prove you are tweeting , yammering and engaging with others online you get to keep it.

An hour before I gave this challenge we had debated every single reason NOT to engage in Social Media.  The usual reasons were given: Viruses; Personal Data Privacy; Abusive Language; Louise Mensch; Piers Morgan. All valid reasons that I certainly couldn’t dispute.

Instead of presenting a counter-argument – we produced the iPads. And the challenge. Accept it – and you get to play with one. Immediately

Instantly – a room full of hardened cynics are transformed as they touch , poke and turn the iPads around in their hands. Apple understand design and they understand how we first learned to play as children. When we didn’t have any cynicism towards anything or anyone.

I’ll let you know how the challenge goes.

By the way , less than 24 hours later I had  an email. From someone who just a few weeks ago told me they would NEVER engage in Social Media.

This is a bit of what it said:

Just wanted to say I’m a convert. It’s amazing. I’ve registered for Yammer. Can you send me that Beginners Guide to Twitter that you mentioned? P.S You won’t be getting your iPad back

The Amazon Test – #CustomerExperience Blog Post

The Kindle Touch

I ordered a Kindle Touch yesterday – expecting a delay as you usually get with new product launches.

It was ordered online at 15.38pm.

1-Click.

It arrived at my door at 7:35am this morning.

It arrives charged.

It knows my name.

By 7:45am it is up and running and has my entire library on it.

When you go into work on Monday morning – use that as a benchmark against any of your interactions with your customers.

Speak to a customer and ask them how it was when they last ordered something from you.

How easy was it.? How quickly was it dealt with? Did it exceed expectations?

I’m pretty much certain we will all fail The Amazon Test

Highlights from Facebook for the Public Sector – Guest Post

It’s great when a colleague comes back really enthused from a conference. The following is a guest post originally published on our internal Yammer. Take it away @Helenatbromford :

Attended a brilliant conference/’unconference’  in Birmingham which left me buzzing with ideas and excitement for social media and the possibilities of the ever changing world we’re all working in. It was called Facebook for the Public Sector and if any of you are on twitter you can view the tweets from the event using #fbps12 but i wanted to share with you some of the thoughts that came from the day.
The focus of the morning sessions were around using social media in the public sector and trying to dispel some of the fears that a lot of organisations have on the use of social media. I would like to point out that Bromford were one of just two organisations (the other had a speaking slot) in a room where over 40 organisations were represented that have opened up social media to all colleagues who want to have a go, people on my table were amazed by this! They were asking all sorts of questions of like ‘how did you get everyone to buy into it?’, ‘Weren’t you scared?’, ‘What if someone says the wrong thing?’ – All of which are valid questions… and this probably was on someone’s mind here at Bromford at some point in our social media journey, but for me… I’d be more worried if no one from Bromford said anything at all! Where would we be then? I think it’s fair to say we are way ahead in the social media journey than most organisations and this is definitely something to celebrate!
But just a few of my top take away’s from the morning are:
• It’s no longer possible to control the message, but if you think about it was it ever?
• You don’t have to be a comms person to be good at comms
• Manage customer expectations – if you don’t want to write Facebook updates at the weekend – tell your customers on a Friday that you’ll be back on Monday – they’ll understand!
• Share your objectives and outcomes with your customers and stakeholders – tell them where you want to be and be honest about how you’re getting there
• Keep innovating and evolving
• Don’t write a social media strategy – it’ll be out of date before its finished
• Be human and tell your story
• Know what you and your organisation want to be famous for
• Be community minded – share and RT information from people in your area – it’ll increase your fans!
• Share your Facebook insights and weekly reach with your colleagues so they know its working – I’ll be sharing this in our feedback centre here on yammer to keep you all updated.

The afternoon was an ‘unconference’ – this was my first experience of this… for those of you who don’t know what an ‘unconference’ is – its basically that there’s no set agenda and people in the room can pitch to host a session… I don’t think I heard the word ‘host’ as I hastily jumped on the microphone to pitch for a session about ‘Hyperlocal websites and online communities!’ – it turned out my session was quite popular and I was saved when Steph Jennings who set up the hyperlocal website http://www.wv11.co.uk/joined in the session! We shared some ideas around this and the key message was ‘we need to go where people are’ i.e. be on social media and be community minded and ‘help people to have the tools to do it themselves’.

That’s just a quick summary of the day, but thought I’d leave you with my favourite quote of the day which was from a colleague from the Police when talking about the trust needed for allowing colleagues on to social media, he said “I trust my team enough to go out on to the streets with a truncheon, why would I not let them have a twitter account?” 

Thoughts from #nhcsocmed…….

By waving you consented to the use of your image

Loved yesterday at the Northern Housing Consortium “Social Media Unconference”.

As one of the presenters it is probably inappropriate that I enthuse too much. But for me it was a much needed firecracker amid the general tedium of UK Housing events. (Bet that’s the last time I get a speaking slot anywhere!)

Why was it? Here’s a few highlights:

1: Use of Yammer – before and after event. Connects participants and attendees before the day – shapes content , introduces new idea’s.

2: Opening wake-up call from @NickAtkin_HHT - “Generation Z will be UK housing customers in 4 years. Are we ready?”. Generally? No. Not at all.

3: Criticise him all you like – but @grantshapps probably has a better handle on 21st Century consumer engagement than the majority of UK Housing professionals - ”most tenants will not attend meetings-socialmedia gives landlords a way to engage and save money”. I think you mean “re-invest” money though , eh Grant?

4: ” Opinions are formed at pubs,clubs and bus stops. Social media can help you listen ” said @TeamTHT. Matthew is that rare thing – a CEO who talks about socialmedia as if its a not a new thing to be frightened of. It’s just a natural evolution of the conversations we have been having through the ages.

5: Best quote for me came from @HelReynolds – host of a workshop looking at Return on Investment in Social Media. ”this is a terrible workshop , sorry,  - because I don’t believe in ROI in socialmedia”.  Helen – who has that uncanny ability to only speak common sense – did a superb job of rubbishing the calls to evaluate professional time spent online. ” They only want it measured because they don’t understand it”

6: Can Linkedin be interesting? @lizcable made it look that way. I’m following her tip. Switch off all those annoying email updates and spend 30 minutes a week making Linkedin work for you.  She seems to know everything there is to know and pushes out quality content. Follow.

There were loads more I could throw at you. But you can read them by following the thread #nhcsocmed on Twitter

P.S Our SlideShare “Everyone. Everywhere. Publishes” can be accessed here….

Feeling like a somebody rather than a nobody…..

The other day I blogged about the negative press surrounding work experience. And about how employers have to think differently to create a positive experience that unlocks potential in people. Especially the people who are the future of work and will expect very different career paths than my generation.

Quite by chance , Marie – one of our newest Opportunities 4 Employment placements – asked me for a quote about how I thought she was getting on. She wanted to use this in her Learning Log . This details her experience of Bromford – and will be used when she (hopefully) makes the transition to an Apprentice.

I agreed , of course , but asked her what the experience so far had felt like for her.

This is what she said – unedited:

Being an O4E is a title in itself, your given an opportunity to do something.

That something, means more to me than I could ever imagine. Its turned my life around in so many positive ways.

Rather than being held in a category that I wasn’t working because I was lazy and just wanted to reap in benefits, was totally untrue and I wanted to break that mould.

Being an O4E has made me a somebody, rather than a nobody.

That’s what we have to create for young people.

On this work experience thing……..

 

Designing The Experience of Work

I hated my work experience. Two weeks spent making cup’s of tea and doing the filing for embittered old men. It instilled in me a fear of offices, old men and filing that took 6 years to get over.

 

Then I found a manager who helped me find what I liked doing.

 

There is surely nothing wrong with the concept of “work experience”. The concept of giving people a chance – any chance – to prove what they can do has to be applauded.

 

But there is a problem with work experience. And it’s not just that businesses may be using unpaid help to subsitute the work of establishment posts. ( I’ve not seen any evidence to be fair)

 

The problem is the concept of work experience hasn’t changed fundamentally since the late 1980′s. It’s still about herding people into experiences that they might hate rather than unlocking potential.

 

Bromford have gone some way to re-designing this. Over 200 people applied for our last Opportunities 4 Employment placements. Paid placements that give 6 months work experience in a variety of roles and experiences. Giving the young person the opportunity to try us out as much as we are trying them. And if they like it they can have an Apprenticeship in the area of the business they are most interested in.

 

There is room for further innovation. Work Experience needs re-designing for the 21st Century.

 

It needs to be about helping people find out what they love doing and how they can get paid for it.

 

 

 

 

 

The UK doesn’t trust young people – New Blog

When I was on holiday I sent the following  couple of tweets:

“Talking guy from neighbouring maharashtra. Trad fishing family now working in #mobile. State is as populous as Mexico and India’s richest”

 ”Massive number of #geny and enterprising – doing 2,3,4 different jobs. We better stop doom and gloom in UK or these guys will eat us alive”

I’ve been in the UK less than a week and I’m already sooooo bored with the political bickering about how we solve this problem.

Lets be clear – No politician or political party will get us out of this.

The best quote I’ve heard came on the Andrew Marr show – not from Nick Clegg – but from Jeremy Irons who said (and I’m paraphrasing)  ”We need to look to the creativity from young people  to reach a solution , not look to those who created the mess in the first place”

We have a problem that’s cultural not political – we don’t trust young people. We think that someone who is 40+ in a suit is qualified to advise them on how they should live their lives and the jobs they be should be doing. Rather than freeing them up to develop and exploit the idea’s that they have.

We live in a world where young people genuinely know more about the mobile economy – the new world – than their elders . And they could be doing jobs that don’t even exist yet.

Here’s four young(ish) people I have come across in the past week:

• Someone who works selling mobile SIM cards. His employer has agreed he takes time off to do an additional (unpaid) job as a Lifeguard as he has spotted tourists moaning about SMS charges when texting home. So he sells them domestic SIM cards so they can text cheaply whilst away. He’s a Lifeguard who sells mobiles.
• A young man who makes clothes and has a small shop next to a restaurant. He waits and helps out in the restaurant for free . But he uses the opportunity to advertise his shop to every customer. And the restaurant owner pays him in meals and stops other people advertising to his customers to ensure maximum cross selling. His is a Waiter who makes and sells clothing.
• A young mother who has been told that because of her child it is “highly unlikely” anyone would want to employ her. She has A level results that put mine to shame.
• A guy with a treatable back problem who has been told he “will never work again” and should give up looking. He just cleared his 30th birthday.

The first two examples are from India. The second two from Great Britain.

One country has  faith its next generation and is on the way up. The other is …. Well , we will see….