Social Networking: Blend With REAL Networking for Effectiveness

Posted on September 22, 2010 by Tommy Landry

The old adage It’s not what you know; it’s who you know may be seen as a tired cliche in many circles these days, with good reason. This is what you’d expect from overused analogies like this one.

Tired or not, it is still absolutely a fact. Thought leaders spend unbelievable time and effort trying to hammer home this message in an online context, wrapping words like social networking, social media, social graph, and other terms around it in hopes of getting the message across.

The problem? Well, there is a forest, and there are some trees, but are they one and the same? Not really…

Social Networking vs. Social Media

First let’s draw lines between a couple of terms that I see being used interchangeably far too often. My loose definitions read something like this:

Social Networking

The act of reaching out to and engaging others via whatever means possible, including social media, traditional media, real-time communications vehicles (phone, SMS), or even an in-person conversation (remember those?).

Social Media

The category term for data-driven services and tools, typically delivered over the Internet, that enable networking of various types by providing new and novel communications capabilities, leading to unique ways of sharing and spreading messages with your network.

Social Networking = Networking

Social Networking: Get Out There And Meet Someone

Bear with me for a moment as I explain the thinking on this one. I’m positing that Social Networking is nothing new. In fact it’s simply old fashioned networking, with new communications vehicles available for the exchange of information and referrals.

At the end of the day, we are still people with real-world needs. This isn’t just about the “must haves” from Maslow’s Triangle either. We get our food, shelter, etc. (the basics) handled offline with our day-to-day lives. But all of that stuff about self-actualization, spiritual growth, career progression, etc. take much more than us working hard during the day and cashing checks for our time and effort.

Now we just have limitless opportunity to expand the “who” in our analogy above. The days are over where your only networking option was to go one of to those awful events where a bunch of Type A exec-wannabes are running around in Dockers, with their hand extended to shake yours, and a business card waiting to be shoved into your pocket in the other hand. Or where you had to arrange your schedule around an event where a thought leader is speaking, just so you can wait in line to guffaw over them and hope you don’t look like a dopey (or creepy) stalker-in-waiting.

Now we can build rapport with anyone that makes him- or herself available. We can establish mutual interest, trust, even schedule availability to meet in real-time.

And once we meet, we already have a foundation upon which to spark interesting conversation. I must say, any introverts who aren’t rejoicing at this newfound way to “come out of their shell” are simply missing the big picture!

New Tools; Old Techniques

The key thing to keep in mind is that all of these cool new tools, websites, and services are just that…tools for us to use. We need to then apply tried-and-true networking and communications techniques to these new tools, and we’ll be able to more nimbly craft networking strategies that take advantage of both the new capabilities and approaches that work.

Once we get that part in order, we can start to experiment with any sort of newfound techniques. Perhaps certain types of discussions are better started on a microblogging service, while others are better on a career networking site. Maybe some belong on Facebook but wouldn’t work anywhere else. I’ve found that Twitter is great for exchanging ideas, sharing content, and promoting services tactfully (i.e. no hard sells). LinkedIn is great for reconnecting with old colleagues, interacting in groups with likeminded professionals, and trying to connect your way to the right people via a “6 degrees of separation” like effort.

You get the picture. These new tools are great, but they can only go so far as your imagination. Get the basics down first…how to use these tools for traditional / IRL networking…and then you can start to try new things. And yes, this does involve getting off the computer and meeting someone in person! If that’s not one of the reasons you’re doing this, then it should be.

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What have you observed in the past in this area? How much more effective has it been for you when you blend offline networking with online / social media-based networking? What do you deem the best mix? Or alternatively, have you seen the opposite?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please share in the comments below.

Twitter: Follow Friday and Etiquette

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Tommy Landry

Twitter is, as many of you already know, one of my favorite social media toys available today. For those of us who are active on Twitter, we are all aware of a little tradition called Follow Friday.

In case you don’t use Twitter or somehow managed to miss it, Follow Friday is a tradition where, every Friday, folks tweet about which other Twitter users are worth following and/or meeting. It’s actually quite simple in my opinion, but there are rather widely varying opinions about how and why you do it properly.

The original tradition dating back 2-3 years was a pretty simple concept – pick your most favorite Tweeters, recommend them, and give a quick blurb about why someone would want to follow. Over time, as the user base began to grow and folks went from having dozens or hundreds of followers to thousands, we started to see a change in behavior.

A little over a year ago, we started seeing a lot of people tweeting list of people to follow, with the #FollowFriday tag attached, of course. (If you don’t know about hashtags, take a moment to learn more.) As this further evolved over the past year or so, the tag changed from #FollowFriday to #FF to save room for another Twitter handle to be added. Makes sense, no?

Twitter “purists” (i.e. early adopters) reacted very negatively to the behavior. Lists of folks to follow did not add the right value they argued. People were taking a shortcut. It shows mass behavior, which is the antithesis of focusing on relationships over “push” messaging. These are all valid arguments.

But this all misses the point. Twitter is a service where you can microblog about whatever you want. You have every right to use the 140 characters for anything. Since it’s based on pure “opt in” (i.e. I choose to follow or unfollow you, or neither), the population can judge by their very behavior. Are people still following me, even if I do the list of users to spread the love more in my limited free time to do so? Sure. So in my opinion, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.

My point: Don’t let people bark direction at you about how to use Twitter. Use common sense, listen to those with whom you’ve engaged, and simply behave in the way that best suits your style, your objectives, and the friends you’ve made online. Sure, there are things you want to shy away from on Twitter, but for the most part, have fun and try not to annoy people, and you’ll be fine.

Do you partake in #FF? Every week or intermittently? What do you think etiquette “should” be? Or should there just be freeform behavior of your choosing? I know some tweeps are passionate about this topic, so let me know what you think!

Levels of Social – and Integration – Cut Across Enterprises

Posted on April 16, 2010 by Tommy Landry

This week, enjoy another compelling guest post by fellow Austin-ite and colleague Julie Hunt of the Highly Competitive blog.

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When I started writing articles for my blog Highly Competitive, I had in the back of my mind the “classic” advice for professional blogging: pick one main area to cover and as such, show my SME-ness for that area. So I should have selected a particular software solution space and stuck to it.

Well that doesn’t really work for me and isn’t even realistic for anyone analyzing today’s software infrastructures in most companies. As such, I find myself covering multiple software topics, largely due to my diverse software tech background, and it all makes sense as we see more and more overt overlap and interconnection between the different applications of any-size enterprises, and between the activities and processes of how enterprises do business. As enterprises become more customer-focused (outside-in), what has become especially interesting is the evolution of change that eventually will produce Social businesses.

Starting with systems infrastructure, many enterprises have multiple points of integration and interoperability. It is this interrelatedness of systems that increases the business value to the enterprise. Integrations and interconnections are happening at multiple levels in businesses: their IT/application infrastructures, the applications themselves, how teams function in the enterprise interacting with systems and people, and how companies are evolving for doing business and engaging buyers. To become an effective Social Business, enterprises will have to nurture integrated internal systems and processes, as well as social strategies and practices for external and internal collaboration and communication.

Enterprises Can’t be Built on Silos – First, a Look at Internal Interoperability

It has become more and more clear that enterprises work better with overtly interconnected systems and business processes. Silos within enterprises both for systems and internal processes have caused a lot of problems. Enterprises, no matter the size, cannot have teams, or systems, operating in vacuums. Where too many silos persist, businesses are doomed, whether the silos are technology or human based.

Understanding how to reduce duplication in systems infrastructure, business processes, team activities, and strategy implementation does much to improve the health of the enterprise. Enterprises want to achieve efficiencies of operation and want to do more with fewer resources, so the elimination of duplications in systems and teams, and the increase of integration (systems) and collaboration (people) is essential.

Since we’re talking about the integrated enterprise, I see enterprise data integration as an illustrative “metaphor”. In most cases data integration endeavors to cut through almost everything in systems infrastructure and involves multiple teams, both IT and Business. Building really good DI processes requires the involvement and collaboration of many teams. Data integration solutions cannot be built in a vacuum to be effective; DI initiatives embody a metaphoric sense of interrelationships and interoperability: process, collaboration, disparate data feeds (information sources) coming together, business rules, business needs. People, business process and technology have worked together to achieve the right results.

Social Capabilities and Strategies Appearing in Many Enterprise Software Solutions

Increasingly, enterprises are introducing and integrating social media for internal and external applications. And now many “traditional” enterprise solutions are adding / integrating social capabilities, to enhance the usability and relevance of these solutions.

Business cases for social media include: internal implementations for enhanced collaboration and communication purposes for employees; external initiatives for better engagement and support of customers/buyers. Many social media guidelines rightly advise that introducing social practices and technology into an enterprise should come after a thorough understanding of what is to be accomplished, and then after an articulation of the strategy. Additionally, businesses have to figure out what cultural changes need to take place internally, for social to make a big difference. Business social process is something that people have to do authentically. Technology and tools do matter as a means of enacting and managing social business processes, but they are no substitute for strategic planning, best practices, real goals, and serious consideration for the human participants.

Beyond the social media technology that is being adopted by enterprises, many “traditional” enterprise applications are becoming more “social”. This is reasonable considering that software solutions are for use by people, whether employees, customers/buyers, or partners. Most software solutions are components of people-oriented processes. These “socializing” solutions include: BPM, BI, CRM, ERP, internal collaboration / intranet, and content management.

Recently Forrester’s Connie Moore – @cmooreforrester – commented on Twitter: “social computing has become the tipping point for businesses and vendors finally marrying collaboration and process” and then “Collaboration between business and business and business and IT is core to any successful #bpm effort.” Connie Moore has extended her coverage of BPM to include social capabilities that will transform BPM solutions.

For many software industry analysts and writers, there are no longer clear demarcations between software solution spaces. The “classic” approach of separate software solution categories being covered by SME writers is giving way to analysis that acknowledges the interdependencies of different kinds of software solutions. We are seeing more collaborative work across solutions, with social computing as a common thread of discussion. Analyst firms like Altimeter Group and Forrester are working with more collaborative efforts from their staff analysts across formerly separate software solution spaces to reflect the realities of how enterprises operate.

And People Complete the Integrated Social Business

My tech background has a markedly strong emphasis on people since software companies are very people-intensive enterprises. Many teams need to collaborate to accomplish company goals and customer needs, with the result that most teams are customer-oriented. If you have a career in software technology, it is essential to recognize the value of people, especially customers. Not surprisingly, many customers of software technology are driving the change to Social Business where the focus is more on people and less on tech.

It’s not just about why people buy or make technology decisions but about respecting people who are trying to accomplish business tasks and solve real problems, and who just want their software to work as advertised without a lot of pain to get there. Software technology ultimately is a product to be sold, so the focus must be on the purpose and real value the technology provides customers.

On the software vendor side, people collaboration should be a top priority: collaborations to sell solutions, collaborations to contribute to customer/buyer success, collaboration with partners and customers for success. Businesses can be very successful if they encourage and engender internal cross-team collaborations focused on customer needs. The growing interest in Social CRM addresses how businesses develop customer relationships to contribute to customer success.

Social is partly about tapping into the connectedness that people are building with the web as a platform. Social Business adoption by software vendors must be based on the fact that people and relationships are what really drive success and longevity. The lesson to enterprise management: Social media adoption has been driven by the people who want to use it to communicate and work efficiently, no matter the purpose. Social media invaded enterprises because people really want to use it – because it is effective for what they are tasked to accomplish.

“Social Business” practices have been around for years

The essentials of Social Business have been around for years in many software enterprises – frequently as a “shadow” culture. A lot of employees in the software industry have intuitively understood and practiced aspects of the “social business”, recognizing the importance of the customer and of collaboration. The process of selling software solutions to enterprises involves a lot of people working with many other people, for internal and external purposes, no matter the sales model.

Ironically employees, customers, partners have been open to adopting social capabilities as part of doing business; the executive level, however, is the laggard for authentic adoption of social collaboration culture and processes. Upper management often has impeded real efforts for social business and has also contributed to creating silos within the company and chasms between teams. Many software companies have been poorly structured for many years to be able to nurture “social business”. Usually not enough people and not enough budget have been allocated for fully supporting strong customer-centric processes and initiatives.

It’s very important that executive and other management levels formalize strategies for Social Business and better empower the many employees who already intuitively know how to find and keep customers/buyers through social relationships and support for customer success.

Fully empowered collaboration with customers and partners will improve sales, product offerings, long-lasting relationships, and will lead to fewer problems. Enterprise teams will be better connected to customers, and to one another. And upper management may finally get real perspective on employee motivations as well as customer desires.

Social Media: Simplify to Reignite Your Social Network

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Tommy Landry

It finally happened to me. I never thought it would, but it sure did.

What am I talking about? Information Overload

We’ve seen a slew of blog posts, studies, articles, and general commentary about this phenomenon. There are even psychological analyses and studies on this topic. Surely you’ve seen the various viewpoints…those who think our newly adopted, manic multi-tasking culture is a natural evolution, and those who think we were never meant to operate in this fashion. The Millennials / Net Generation / whatever you want to call the folks born from 1980 forward are experts at it. They operate differently, and they seem to have no problem with hopping from topic-to-topic, conversation-to-conversation, rapidly absorbing, filtering, and interpreting as many data points as they can possibly access.

Personally, I think it’s a natural evolution in behavior. As a species, we have always evolved to take advantage of new innovations. In fact, there’s a little concept we call Darwinism that explains why certain members of each species manage to survive over the long term, and why others do not. If you can’t keep up, you get left behind, as sad as that reality may be.

But there’s another issue here. That model of evolution makes a lot of sense, but it has historically conspired over extended periods of time, decades, centuries, even millenniums. But now we are making large-scale advancements between generations and even decades. Many Baby Boomers simply don’t understand or condone the younger sect’s way of operating. That doesn’t make them superior or more right. After all, they were raised in a different time where mass media was the primary form of communications. That medium, by its very nature, is a single stream of content on which you need to focus.

I find myself in an odd between state, where I can often be much more productive via focusing, but where my normal mode of operation is fragmented like the younger group.

A couple of things changed that put me over the tipping point.

First, I decided to dabble with foursquare over the course of several months. My initial reaction to the service was negative. Thoughts of an Orwellian future filled my head on first glance. Why do I want to advertise where I am? And as we’ve seen, why advertise where I am not? Well, the repeated advice from social media “gurus” that I needed to get on the Geolocation train finally broke me down and I started to play the game. Those of you who know me personally have already likely heard about my concerns, even while I was using it (probably a mad effort to rationalize it for myself, actually).

Second, my job changed a bit and became significantly more busy. Like 14 trade shows in 4 months busy, on top of my existing messaging, social media, and other responsibilities. I also inherited all of MarCom for Anue Systems.

Of course, sooner or later, something had to give. I was already juggling a full time job, family, blogging, and a list of other items. But a couple of weeks ago, I got this mad feeling to go hide under a rock. Yep, it was full-on Information Overload.

So I had to make a very important choice: Simplify.

Go cold turkey on foursquare.

Start removing those I follow on Twitter with whom I have no relationship to speak of or who provide no value to me. If they stop following, oh well. Quality over quantity, right?

Focus more on conversations rather than content. And strongly focus on real people in my locale who I can meet and engage with offline. This was the most refreshing of all of these changes!

Now I feel much better. Call it a social media spring cleaning. It’s something we should make a habit.

How is social media treating you? Are you still getting the same value out of it? Could your activities use a fresh spring cleaning? Have you ever experienced Information Overload? Tell me your story in the comments. If I get some good enough conversation going, I’ll assemble them into a post for my Posterous page to share with the world!

Fantasy Sports: Why I Love Opening Weekend

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Tommy Landry

: We’re baaaack!

In honor of the Major League Baseball opening weekend, I decided to take a moment today to reflect on why I love the start of the season in each of the sports that has a fantasy game I enjoy.

By this point in time, the vast majority of fantasy leagues have completed their drafts and are waiting in anticipation of the first pitch. While this may seem like the time that fantasy sports games start to the casual observer, that is far from the truth.

You see, fantasy games can be a year-round activity for the hard core player. I know many a fan who follows nothing but football or baseball every single month on the calendar. On the other hand, there are players like me. These are folks who play every major fantasy sport, which conveniently enough, just happens to touch on every month of the year.

Typically, depending on just how interested you are in a particular fantasy game, you may put in a couple of days researching who to pick, or you may be preparing for months. Some of us even continuously prepare for future seasons while we aren’t even finished with the one under way!

The most competitive and savvy players will spend at least a few weeks doing their research for the season. Many of them keep their own projections or download these stats from one of many websites that offers their take on prognosticating actual numbers. They spend time debating and splitting hairs between whether to take a rookie second baseman with a new starting job or an established shortstop with a track record but minimal upside.

Finally, at some point within the last few weeks heading up to opening weekend, they draft their team or teams. Believe it or not, the date of the draft is a HUGE event for the fantasy sports aficionado! You spend all this time preparing, figuring out when you have to draft certain guys to get them before someone else does, and mapping out how you want to approach the draft itself, and this is the day when you finally know what you’re going to battle with.

But it’s not over there. You spend the next week(s) until the season starts re-evaluating the selections you made. Oftentimes, your last pick or two are expendable if someone else better comes along. So you have to watch new developments and react in a way that will best position you to compete.

: Fantasy Sports: Like Christmas Morning?

Obviously, with all this prep and hard work, the anticipation heading up to the first day of games can be nearly unbearable some years. I know I completed all of my serious drafts by last weekend, and the last week has been great, but there’s nothing like the games actually starting.

Anti-fantasy sports naysayers may call this a waste off time, but many a fantasy player has compared either the draft itself or opening weekend to Christmas morning. Y’know, that excited feeling you got when you were a kid when you walked into whatever room “Santa Claus” left his gifts in? It’s a lot like that.

So in honor of the first round of a long 162 game season, I’ll take this chance to say it for myself…”Play Ball!”

Search Engine Marketing: Using Google AdWords As A Research Tool

Posted on March 29, 2010 by Tommy Landry

Please enjoy the following guest post written by my friends at Top Side Media.

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In our experience with search engine advertising, one of its unique aspects is that, in addition to directly generating online sales or leads, its robust settings provide an excellent tool for business research and planning. In the creation and management of search engine ads, the campaigns, ad groups, and more granular settings gather a great deal of useful data. This is particularly true for Google AdWords. When specifically set up for testing, the potential is a marketer’s dream. For example, we control the following primary variables:

Who sees the ad (by IP address and the search terms they use)
What URL, ad message, or offer they initially respond to in the text ad (with the option to drive equal amounts of traffic for A/B testing)
What landing page content or secondary offer they view and respond to by converting

For this article, perhaps the best way to describe the potential of these is through scenarios:

Gauging interest in a new product, line extension, or service
If your B2B or B2C company is considering a new product or service, but is unsure of the demand in a specific geographical territory, search engine ads can function as a real-time focus group. You can post an article, white paper, online questionnaire, survey, or any useful resource on your website that works as an interim/substitute conversion. The response is a useful indicator of how the proposed product or service will do. For example, if there is low search volume online, the new effort will likely require a lot of education to generate online demand. As stated earlier, the click through response can be tested on different offers and messages in text ads. Finally, the onsite offer or content can be tested, provided there is enough time and search data available. This data can be compared to deeper conversion data from a known category to help project how the new product or service would impact your business.

Service businesses – considering changing or expanding territories or locations
We have a corporate client whose regional locations provide services to homeowners. When gas prices rose rapidly, they wanted to consider the benefits and impact on their business of temporarily reducing the geographical territory in which they advertise for new customers. The goal was to reduce the miles driven, which would save fuel costs and increase the amount of time technicians were performing billable services. By testing with different custom geotargeting, and projecting the new search and click through data with their previous conversion rates, we were able to accurately estimate how many fewer searches (thus appointments, jobs, and revenue) they would receive if they reduced their service area being advertised. The same testing process would also work if an expansion in territory is being considered.

Testing messaging, offers or a new domain name
If a company is considering rebranding, creating a new tag line, or microsite, text ads can be used to test the initial response to the proposed change. Changing and testing one variable with equal amounts of traffic is a simple way to quantify which version potential customers like. Since impression and click data are initial indicators of interest, to project profitability and overall success, there should be additional tests to see which variables on the landing page get higher conversion rates also.

Retail business – inventory planning, pricing, and more
For businesses that are subject to fads or trends, such as the retail bicycle industry, search data can be used to predict future business activity and needs. For example, we can monitor search/impression data by category, such as generic searches for road bikes and compare it with similar searches for mountain bikes. If a sustained shift in the ratio of searches in the two categories occurs, that could predict the number of upcoming sales of units for first time buyers by category. This data could be used to help with ordering, managing inventory, pricing, merchandising, and more.

The scenarios above are simplified for the amount of space available in this post. In the same way the process works for a retailer, it could be equally beneficial to a car manufacturer as a leading indicator for planning their production.

Why search engine advertising data works as a research tool
Because the data being gathered is actual consumer or end user search behavior, it is free of many of the biases inherent in focus groups or questionnaires. Why? In situations where participants know they are being observed or questioned, many times their answers are skewed.

Because we control so many elements, Google AdWords allows testing that would be more difficult or impossible with natural, more random traffic to a website. Many settings, such as the use of negative keyword filters and conversion tracking tools help us dial in the traffic to make Google AdWords a very effective research tool.

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Top Side Media specializes in Search Engine Advertising, Incoming Lead Generation and Landing Page Testing. For more information, visit their website at http://www.topsidemedia.com/

Social Media: Think Before You Tweet

Posted on March 8, 2010 by Tommy Landry

Last week while traveling to San Francisco for the RSA Conference 2010, I finally took the time to figure out how to use TwitPic from my mobile phone. It was like a revelation! For those of you who follow me, you may have seen as I posted various photos from the trip out there, my dinner the first night, etc. I had a shiny new toy!

Then on Monday night during the opening reception, the show was relatively slow. You see, they open the show with a two-hour open Expo, and the organizers treat attendees to beer, wine, and food. Because of the treats and eats, very few of the attendees are actually interested in engaging in business-related discussion of any sort. Of course, as an exhibitor (@AnueSystems, actually), we are required to man the booth in case we are approached by anyone with questions or interest in our products.

Since we were mostly standing around looking for some meaningful conversations to crop up, I decided to partake in one of my favorite pastimes when out in public: people-watching. RSA presents a very interesting range of people from all around the world. There were business types in suits, hard-core security techs in t-shirts and jeans, booth talent in various getups, marketing and sales folks in company branded attire, and just about anything else you can imagine.

About an hour into the show, a woman approached the booth across from us in a very peculiar outfit. In fact, it looked as though she were dressed by a color blind, stylistically-challenged imp! We had a nice chuckle among our group, and of course we snapped a couple of photos. Then it dawned on me…I had to share this one on Twitter. It would surely elicit some nice laughs by my online friends, so I opened up email and teed it up to send with the following message included: “RSA 2010: Not a fashion conference”. After a few minutes, I had second thoughts about whether this was a smart thing to do, but it appeared the email had already sent, so I was all in.

The next day while having lunch with Jennifer Leggio (@mediaphyter), Social Business blogger for ZDnet, I shared this story to see what she thought. Her reply? “What if that is one of your customers?” Of course, I was just about certain it was not, but as I pondered her feedback further, I grew more and more concerned about doing something so stupid without thinking first. Now, I’m a guy who is no stranger to the taste of my foot, but at this point in my life, I’m most certainly too old to blame such a gaff on the folly of youth.

That night, I logged into Twitter to see what maelstrom of feedback I may have gotten to the picture, and it unexplainably wasn’t showing up in my stream. I was befuddled! Can it be…did the email never in fact deliver? So I went to TwitPic and logged in, and alas! I did manage to successfully cancel the transmission, which was the result of either luck or badly-needed common sense [maybe a little bit of both].

Whew, what a close call. For those of you who know me, you’re aware that I’m always up for a good laugh, but seldomly in such a disrespectful way to fellow professionals (and yes, even those with no fashion sense deserve respect on an intellectual and business level). I try very hard to foster productive and mutually beneficial relationships. In fact, networking is one of the most important things I do outside of work and spending time with my family.

But in one fell swoop, I nearly let the my fervor for a newfound toy throw me off my course. Never forget, social networking is still about people first. Anything you say or post online is available for public consumption, and with your “it’s me” stamp of approval permanently attached. Sites, tools, software, and cool apps are great, but they are just methods by which to interact with real people. Think about how it might affect the person on the other end, and in this case, the “butt” of the joke. It’s just not worth doing something potentially offensive for a cheap laugh. Oh yeah, and if you’re in the job market, be sure your Facebook account won’t scare off your interviewer. If you don’t think they are looking, think again.

Special thanks to @Mediaphyter for her voice of reason. If you haven’t seen her work, I highly recommend you take a moment to do so.

On that note, namaste my friends.

Information Security & the New Generational Gap

Posted on March 1, 2010 by Tommy Landry

Since the RSA Conference is happening this week, I thought it would be different to do a piece that hits on both Real-time and Information Security. The following blog post is my own original work that appeared on The Network View, the official blog for Anue Systems, on November 12, 2009. It highlights some important sociological differences between the various generations of today’s adult population, and looks at how changing work habits and security need to find a workable balance.

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We all know that each generation (i.e. Baby Boomers, Generation X, etc.) brings with it new and different behaviors, attitudes, opinions, and interests. However, with the rapid advancement of technology in general, we are just now learning exactly how pervasive connectivity is impacting the younger sect of our working population.

Earlier this week I came across a very intriguing commentary on this very topic, Lifestyle Hackers, which appears on CSO Online. This insightful article talked about what is being referred to as the “Net Generation“, the younger subset of our population that has never known life without the Internet and other communication technologies (as opposed to Baby Boomers who were raised with television as the primary technology/communications breakthrough early in life).

: Connectivity: A Threat or a Productivity Tool?

Technology exposure has upsides and downsides, and we won’t go into all of the social implications of being connected and interacting virtually rather than face-to-face. However, twenty-somethings, the first true group of working adults among the Net Generation, seem to have a knack for finding their way around security measures. The ever-present Insider Threat is no longer solely a problem of user ignorance or malicious intent; it is now a problem of technical competence and motivation. How can that be you ask?

You see, the Net Generation views life, business, and productivity through different glasses than previous generations. While your security team is blocking access to social media, instant messaging, and other “high risk” applications, NetGeners (as we’ll refer to them from here forward) find those media to be crucial to their productivity. But your leadership team likely sees these tools as hindrances to productivity, hence the desire to block access. In the end, we’re all chasing the same goal – to get more done and to do it as efficiently as possible.

: How do you define productivity?

Basically, the problem all comes down to perspective. Baby Boomers are more likely to focus on a specific task, much like watching a show or channel on TV. NetGeners, on the other hand, prefer the connectivity of the internet and have come to embrace multitasking as a fact of daily life. The article elaborates on this point, “As Internet-facing technology became ubiquitous and leaped from the home to the mobile device, the Net Generation adapted by incorporating new technology into its very social fabric.” Heck, NetGeners even have their own slang these days.

So who is right? Everyone is in some way. NetGeners see Facebook as a tool for collaboration to more quickly solve problems. They use Text Messaging (SMS) much like Baby Boomers have come to embrace email, but NetGeners prefer the instant gratification of knowing the message delivers now and the answer will come quickly, rather than a day or two later. For these reasons, many NetGeners actually refer to themselves as “Generation Now”. [Editor's Note: It's curious that most NetGeners somehow fail to grasp the value of Twitter, but that's another discussion altogether.]

The bottom line is this – media changes and evolves, as does technology. Different generations work in different ways. This has been true for hundreds of years now, through the Industrial revolution, which first made the term “economies of scale” relevant, to today, where micro-anything and real-time is deemed superior to the old way of doing things. First there was snail mail, then the telephone, then the facsimile (”fax” to all you NetGeners), then the Internet, then email, and then finally, widespread acceptance of cell phones. Cell phones naturally forced the whole equation to evolve again, and now, real-time is key.

So what’s a security professional to do? As a technologist, the smart approach is to embrace and enable safe usage of these new technologies. Revisit your Security Policy. If it’s too restrictive, expect problems if/when you hire twenty-somethings. They will find a way around it, and your policy won’t work. Ultimately, you risk failing to enforce the very security that you aim to establish.

Security is here to ensure safe operation of the network, but not here to handcuff workers from being able to be productive. We’re not there yet, but a balance must be struck, and it’s up to CSOs and Security Management to determine the optimal approach.

Have you managed to figure out the balance? Please share your thoughts, tips, or even any criticisms of this viewpoint. This is a topic that must be discussed, and we’re happy to take the lead on drumming up the discussion.

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