Lessons from Leonsis - Not the Tech but the Culture

Ted Leonsis, for those who don't know, is a guy who made big bucks at AOL and is now owner of the Washington Capitals hockey team (CAPS Let's Go CAPS!) Ted also writes his own blog -really he does - and recently he posted this piece. In this post, Ted (yes, I call him Ted) asks if it ever does any good to blame the media for your troubles. He concludes that it isn't. He talks a lot about what he thinks you should be doing if you're in a position to need to control your image in the media and while that's helpful - I really like the article for what its not explicitly talking about.

The fact that it is Leonsis presents us with a nice comparison. Look at the beating that Dan Snyder (owner of the Washington Redskins football team - who aren't doing very well) is taking right now. Do as Ted suggests and go Google "Ted Leonsis" and see what comes up and then Google "Dan Snyder" and see what comes up. It's clear which owner is shaping the message - by PARTICIPATING in it.

 

This is a central lesson about social media - people are already talking about the stuff they don't like and the policies they don't like - by not fully embracing not just the technology of social media but its attendant CULTURE of openness and transparency (as Leonsis recommends) all that happens is you prevent the sharing of all the good stuff.

 

I think one of the big pieces here that might get missed is that Leonsis is not talking about a technology shift - he is talking about a mental shift, a cultural shift, a shift in how he thinks about his relationship with the media. I'd humbly suggest that organizations looking to implement social media or social learning (whatever the current term of art is) are confronted with a similar option-make this about more technology or make it about changing your culture and using technology to help.

If you are putting together a Social Learning plan are you budgeting for organizational design and change management issues? Have you thought about doing any ethnographic research before moving forward? Have you thought about how using these technologies might re-shape your corporate culture? We need to be thinking these things. These things are at the heart of what we need to do to really move forward.

Comments

[Cindy]

A culture shift provides a good explanation of some of the resistance that many organizational leaders tend to experience after implementing social media in a business context. For example, using a wiki for collaborative knowledge building and knowledge management appears to come with few direct costs in monetary terms. However, if the organization is not prepared for the openness and transparency of information-sharing (and opinion-sharing) a wiki offers to its users at all levels of the organization, then the social media may be ill-received. Indirect costs of a culture shift and changes to organizational structure (whether perceived or actual) can be either devastating or beneficial, and can depend highly on leadership preparedness.

[juegos de estrategia]

nice culture info, thanks for sharing it
greetings