I recently came across this blog post at Twittercism by a blogger who took it upon himself to find all 47 (and counting) employees at Twitter and figure out what their roles are.
Now, obviously, this is about Twitter staff, who, as you would expect, are all on Twitter (though, interestingly, at least one of them has protected their updates). But to me, this was a big eye-opener, a sign of things to come.
A sign that people will expect a company or organization's staff to be accessible, to be found online.
But more than that, a sign that people will find ways to "get to the source" rather than listen to the party line. Did you see the last sentence of that quote? "...many of these guys are more open and communicative about changes within Twitter than their esteemed leaders".
Whoa.
So what does that mean for your organization? It simply means you need to be able to empower your people to speak for you, because they probably will anyway. There are plenty of ways to do that - start with good common sense policies.
Most importantly, you need to enable trust. You need to be able to figure out how to be transparent internally, so that people really understand when they can share information and when they can't and why. Don't wait on this one. Don't be that example of what not to do.
[photo credit]
--------------------------------------------------------Here, then, in alphabetical order (by first name), is a list of the 47 people who work for Twitter including, with official confirmation where possible, details of what they do. If you have an interest in keeping up-to-speed with all developments on the network, you might find following some of these accounts of enormous benefit. Indeed, from what I have seen, many of these guys are more open and communicative about changes within Twitter than their esteemed leaders.
Now, obviously, this is about Twitter staff, who, as you would expect, are all on Twitter (though, interestingly, at least one of them has protected their updates). But to me, this was a big eye-opener, a sign of things to come.
A sign that people will expect a company or organization's staff to be accessible, to be found online.
But more than that, a sign that people will find ways to "get to the source" rather than listen to the party line. Did you see the last sentence of that quote? "...many of these guys are more open and communicative about changes within Twitter than their esteemed leaders".
Whoa.
So what does that mean for your organization? It simply means you need to be able to empower your people to speak for you, because they probably will anyway. There are plenty of ways to do that - start with good common sense policies.
Most importantly, you need to enable trust. You need to be able to figure out how to be transparent internally, so that people really understand when they can share information and when they can't and why. Don't wait on this one. Don't be that example of what not to do.
[photo credit]
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