On Tuesday, May 4 at 4 p.m., David Garvin, the C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School will come to the University of Baltimore to talk about his much-anticipated book “Rethinking the MBA.”

The presentation will take place at the Merrick School of Business, University of Baltimore (M. Scot Kaufman Auditorium of the William H. Thumel Sr. Business Center, 11 W. Mt. Royal Ave, Baltimore MD 21201). The presentation is being co-sponsored by the Merrick School of Business and the Harvard Business Alumni Club of Baltimore.

Tickets for Professor Garvin’s May 4 presentation are $20. To register for the event and purchase tickets, contact Danielle Giles at dgiles@ubalt.edu or 410.837.4948, or visit www.ubalt.edu/rethinkingmba.

This is the second video in the social media strategy series. In it I walk through the first step in the social media strategy process which is to determine prupose. I stress the importance of looking at the overall organizational strategy, goals, and objectives. From there, you select a few goals that will lend themselves to a social media solution.

This step in the process is not about social media but about strategic thinking.

Social media strategy. To implement social media properly you need a plan. This is the first video in a series that will discuss social media strategy. The strategy process involves seven steps listed below the video. This entire series will discuss each of these steps in greater detail.

Social Media Strategy: The 7 Steps

1. Determine purpose
2. Choose the platform
3. Integrate and enhance
4. Set the budget
5. Sell the idea
6. Implement
7. Measure

This video discusses how a leader can strengthen a diverse team. Diversity is a reality in today’s workplace and teams will continue to become more diverse. This video explains what a manager needs to know about building great team cohesions for today’s diverse office environment.

A Facebook friend suggested I read Umair Haque’s article on the Harvard Business Review blog titled, “The Social Media Bubble”. The title sounded interesting so I gave it a read. In general, I don’t agree with Haque’s thoughts and conclusions on social media. Let’s take this one by one.

First he states that there is relationship inflation in which our “friends” are an illusion of a real relationship. I won’t argue with that point at all. I have friends on Facebook who I barely interact with in the “real world”. What I don’t agree is the hypotheses he induces from relationship inflation.

Trust
Haque states that there is no increase in trust given the number of friends we have on social networks. While it’s true I wouldn’t trust many of my friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter to watch my 5 year-old daughter, I do trust them for specific information in a variety of content areas. So, I’d argue that a person’s access to trusted resources has grown using social networks, not diminished.

Disempowerment
Haque states, “The internet itself isn’t disempowering government by giving voices to the traditionally voiceless; it’s empowering authoritarian states to limit and circumscribe freedom by radically lowering the costs of surveillance and enforcement.” Try telling that to the students in Iran after the elections in 2009. The world was getting on the ground reports from real citizens in the streets of Iran. It wasn’t the media feeding us what they wanted us to see. I saw the tweets. I saw the photos. I’d argue that social media could be the most democratizing technology we’ve experience in society thus far. It gives a supercharged megaphone to the once voiceless.

Hate
Haque says, “today’s ‘social’ web is a world full of the linguistic equivalent of drive-by shootings.” Okay, I’ll admit that I’ve seen pretty heinous comments on YouTube videos and news stories that allow comments. Some are what I’d classify as hate-speech and some are simply childish un-intellectual rants. However, social media allows all individuals the ability to make their voices heard. I am responding to Haque’s blog with my own blog post. If he reads this post (and I hope he does), I hope he sees this as a dissenting opinion and not hateful rhetoric. I’d rather social media allow for both childish rants and intellectual discourse then bar the conversation entirely.

Exclusion
Haque states that having 1000 friends together who are passionate about a single topic isn’t friendship, but simply a solitary shared interest. I assume he is suggesting that instead of creating inclusive, diverse groups, we are self-selecting into a group of like-minded individuals. Social identity theory (SIT) states that we, as humans, have a tendency to stick together (as Haque says, “birds of a feather”). Is this any different than the real world? I agree that SIT is a challenge to diversity and I’ve blogged and produced a video about how to overcome it. I think that what needs to be considered is the social process. I might belong to a social network that discusses “vintage 1960s glasses” but within that group is a diverse set of individuals. As I become closer to these individuals I learn about these differences and am better for it.

Value
If I understand Haque correctly, he believes that because social friendships are not real relationships, they lack value. I disagree entirely. In his book, Enterprise 2.0, Professor Andrew McAfee goes into great detail demonstrating the value of social networks. He presents a convincing argument that there is value in strong-ties (close friends), weak-ties (acquaintances), potential ties and no ties at all.

Haque also discusses three cancers eating away at today’s internet.

First cancer: He posits that attention is not allocated efficiently. I really won’t elaborate on this but on the social web you can determine for yourself how attention should be allocated. The individual is free to decide.

Second cancer: He states that people invest in low quality content and points to Farmville as the example. I don’t know about you, but I, as well as many of my friends on various social networks, use these networks to become more knowledgeable about a variety of topics. In fact, I believe organizations can use social media become more effective. Also, what’s wrong with having a little fun? If users of social media want to spend 15-20 minutes (or more) playing Farmville to de-stress or simply because they enjoy it, is society going to fall apart because they are not spending their time doing something more intellectual?

Third (most damaging) cancer: Finally, Haque says that the internet is not being used as a force for good. I believe in freedom of speech and expression so the internet and social media will become whatever we make of it. There’s a lot of junk out there, for sure, but there are a lot of social enterprises and charitable organizations expanding in ways they never could have if it weren’t for social media or the Internet. Is the internet to be used for social good or social evil? Neither and both. We have the wonderful freedom to make it whatever we want.

Overall, I disagree with Haque’s article on almost every count. However, as I re-read his blog article, I almost get the impression Haque purposefully wrote the piece to stir-up some controversy and encourage us all to think. If that was his goal, then he succeeded. So in that respect, nice work Mr. Haque.

Facebook has been riddled with some kind of trojan and/or spyware the past few months. Here are some ways to help limit your exposure to these nasty critters. 

1. Make sure you are running anti-virus software. McAfee and Norton are used in corporate environments. For home use I suggest Avast (which is free) and PcTools Spyware Doctor Spyware+Anti-Virus version (it is $20).
2. Install Spyware protection. My favorite is PcTools Spyware Doctor. If you purchase the Spyware+Anti-Virus version you’ll get great virus and spyware protection in one package.
3. Never click on any link (YouTube or otherwise) that looks suspicious. If a friend’s status update is a link or a link with a phrase such as “This is funny” or “You gotta see this” or “This is a great article”…DO NOT CLICK IT. Here are some examples of suspicious links.
4. Only click on links where your friend gives context to the link. For example, here are a few examples that I would say are “safe”.
   

   Note the verbose description to give context to the video and the embedded video itself.

   

   Note the link and the embedded article.

5. If you click on a link from within Facebook and you go to a page (even if it looks like YouTube, the New York Times, CNN, FoxNews, etc.) and the page asks you to download a “new version of Flash” or to download anything else…DO NOT DOWNLOAD.

Don’t be scared to click on links, just be smart about it. Post a status update asking your friends to give their links and YouTube videos context so you can decipher the bad links from legitimate ones. 

If you did click on a suspicious link, then you will need to IMMEDIATELY purchase spyware and virus scanning and removal software. I found PcTools Spyware Doctor to be particularly effective. 

Don’t take this lightly! These are insidious critters as some are keyboard loggers and capture EVERYTHING you type including bank account numbers, user names, passwords, credit card numbers, and perhaps sensitive work information as well. Everything captured gets sent to pretty seedy individuals who I’m sure do not have your best interests in mind. 

 Practice safe Facebooking!

As I flip through the prime-time cable news channels I see and hear the following:

“Small businesses and entrepreneurs create jobs.”

“The small business is the backbone of our economy.”

If you’re skeptical take a look here, here, and here.

At a conference I attended a few weeks ago I heard the phrase “the nobility of business” and “business as a noble profession”. We may not think of business in this fashion given the unethical practices that capture the headlines. However, for every negative story there are likely thousands of honest, hard-working entrepreneurs realizing their dreams and creating jobs. How is an entrepreneur’s drive and passion a noble profession? It’s pretty simple; they contribute to economic growth. Here’s an overly simplified snapshot of the process.

1. The entrepreneur creates something, a business, that did not exist.
2. This new business invests in itself, purchasing supplies, equipment, advertising, and other items.  This investment is good for banks, suppliers, and the workforce.
3. The entrepreneur fills a need or a want satisfying customers.
4. As the business grows, jobs are created and the entrepreneur hires employees.
5. These employees now have jobs to help support themselves and/or their families.
6. The employees who now have jobs can spend more to support themselves which in turn creates demand for products and services; spawning the need for more jobs.

Though the motivation of an entrepreneur may be to earn a profit and for personal fulfillment, the results they generate are noble indeed. Assuming that business is conducted in a ethical manner (and most entrepreneurs are ethical), the means justify the ends and the ends justify the means.

I am going to start vlogging. I’ll be publishing on both YouTube and Viddler to reach two different audiences. When I do produce a video, I’ll post it here on the blog as well.

My vlogging topics will be:

• Leadership
• Business
• Social Media
• Organizational Issues
• and other items of interest to me (which I hope will also be of interest to you)

My first video is below. I turned my blog post ‘Top 10 reasons to ban social media access at work‘ into a video. I hope you enjoy. The style of all my videos will likely be the same. Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions. Enjoy!

Please note: This video and my previous post about banning social media are sarcastic rants. I actually believe organizations should embrace, not block social media.

Social media will have far reaching effects on leaders and the entire concept of leadership. The traditional organization as a top-down hierarchy have been deteriorating for some time. However, vestiges of Weber’s bureaucratic organization remain (and for some organizations, firmly entrenched).

Social media focuses more on social networks and connections and less on formal hierarchies. This presents both a challenge and opportunity for existing and future leaders.

The February issue of the International Leadership Association featured an article by Arthur Jue titled, “Social Media, Leadership, and the Emerging Architecture of Change”. In it, he states,

In business leadership, social media helps to enhance culture, recruitment, innovation, customer relationships, operational efficiency, engagement, and ultimately organizational performance.

It connects employees in new ways that redefine traditional roles, eliciting greater freedom of expression and commitment.

What I see is that leaders must now be facilitators of the social network process. Leaders will need to motivate staff inside and outside of the their purview encouraging the use of social connections far outside the normal boundaries of the organizational hierarchy. The leader will be seen as a facilitator of connections and understand that informal social networks using social media are far more powerful than the information transferred within the typical chain of command. The power is not in the leader, but in the collaborative power of employees.

My dissertation for my Ph.D. in organizational leadership will deal directly with leadership and social media. I’m working with my dissertation advisor at the moment and within the next few months I will be defending my initial proposal.

As Warren Bennis said, “Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth.” I’m taking on yet another facet.

I was part of a panel at the Gartner Portals, Content and Collaboration Summit yesterday (March 10^th). I was on stage with Jeanne Homl from NASA and Walton Smith from Booz Allen Hamilton. The moderator asked how many participants in the room worked for companies that ban social media access. About two-thirds of the audience raised their hands. After seeing this many hands go up, I had a change of heart.

I’ve changed my mind from my prior opinion. I now believe that organizations should BAN social media access.

Here are the Top 10 reasons why:

Number 10: Social media is a fad. Two years from now we’ll be moving to the next marketing or management fad.

Number 9: Social media takes control away from the corporation; and you can’t have that. Controlling the message is what it’s all about.

Number 8: Employees are simply going to goof off. They don’t do anything non-work related now like go to the water cooler, the coffee machine, or even the bathroom.

Number 7: Social media is only good for watching funny YouTube videos and knowing what a former classmate is eating for lunch. Social media, please, what a waste of time.

Number 6:Social media serves no business purpose. Your salespeople are top notch. Come on, will teaching them how to use LinkedIn really make them more effective?

Number 5: Employees simply cannot be trusted and will likely say things in social networks that will become bad publicity for your company.

Number 4: Millennials expect access to social media at work. Hey, Millennials, wake up! It’s a bad economy. Be happy you have a job.

Number 3: Your team already shares knowledge effectively and adding another technology to the mix is simply going to make it more confusing.

Number 2: Social media will simply bring viruses and Trojan horses into your network. For security reasons alone it should be banned!

And the Number 1 reason for banning social media access:
Your competition isn’t using it, so why should you.

Please note: This article was written with a bit of sarcasm and a dash of wit. In reality I believe social media should not be banned but embraced by organizations. Consider this post “reverse psychology” for those organizations that ban employee access to social media.