Deane Barker from Blend Interactive is talking about Overcoming the Fear: What C-Level execs are afraid of when it comes to social intranets. Deane is here from the United States.

Key points:
– If you go and tell an executive that you're going to let every employee post to the intranet, most executives will freak out.
– The big questions – "What is everyone so afraid of?"
– … ran a research project – showed some executives at various organizations a deck of screen shots. Over the course of the screen shots, there were differences – more social aspects are being added.
– … then asked, "do you see anything that bothers you, and why?"
– … were looking for the "reach for the phone" moment.
– … discovered eight major concerns
– … then ran a survey with 50 people, to assess reaction/response. The survey respondents were intranet professionals.
– the top five concerns – the bottom three were specific to US business law.
– note that some of the fears are irrational.
– concerns:
– … (5) the lack of social filters – there are some things at work that you don't discuss. If people haven't been indoctrinated into the social norms, there can be problems.
– … (4) diffusion of official communication – how do employees evaluate the "officialness" of multiple communication channels.
– … … key finding – a social intranet is just another communications channel. Enterprises were worried about email once too.
– … (3) productivity – not concerned about actual productivity, but the concern with the perception of wasted time. Were concerned that their manager's would think they were wasting time.
– … … key point – people are concerned that other people are concerned.
– … (2) asymmetrical usage – some people will communicate a lot, others will not communicate very much – what judgments will other people make based on this?
– … (1) mob mentality – eg., if one person complains, everyone will complain.
– … … compare this to organizational surface tension (water above the level of the glass)
– … … key lesson – it's much more difficult to fix the systemic culture shifts.
– so what can you do about it? Some ideas:
– … localize communication – decision makers were much happier about within-team communication, than to the whole company. Remember that communication needs context, and localization breeds context.
– … ease employees into the deep end. Access and privileges will expand with time elapsed from time-of-hire. Eg., they can't edit their profile until they've been there for 30 days.
– … leverage your vendor's experience – they've seen it all, many times before. Ask, "how did other organizations fix this?"
– … the benefit must be sold.

– remember: a social intranet is just another communication channel.