Replacing the ‘social’ in ‘social media’?

Many innovation thinkers propose the use of social media in the workplace, I’ve been one of them.  If you stop and think about social media, it has been a spontaneous growth of voluntary connectedness with people in our lives.  Connections are made on social media voluntarily, I want to be social with my connections, with my audience.  I dont want to connect with just anyone unless it is a marketing activity. 

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Current friends, my family. relatives and old friends all make it to my social network.

So doesn’t implementing ‘social’ media within the workplace assume that we want to connect voluntarily with other employees. The fact is, the larger the company the more likely people will not want to connect wth one another. 

I love social media but the truth is there are people that I do not want to connect with socially at my place of employment for a variety of reasons.  Add the competitive nature of most employees and use social media tools at work becomes unlikely.

Maybe it is time to create a new platform based on the “social media” platform.  We should not call it social because of all the assumptions that people have about social media (particularly facebook), we can call it “collaboration media” or “Your Company Name media” and the purpose of this platform is to be well defined and is not for being social. 

Its stated purpose should be connecting for teaching/reporting to one another.  It is simply a tool to share information and it should not carry with it all the strings attached friendships and voluntary connectedness of “social” media (like facebook).

Do you use a social media tool for internal communication or collaboration? Please share.

For Profit and Knowledge

“Research and development of new products is a noble work, it is not morally neutral but is morally positive.   Discovering new materials, inventing new processes and creating new products for the public’s consumption is morally positive.  It is important that is said out loud, research and development is not simply a value creation engine for greedy corporation’s bottom line.  If you feel that way then you should not be in R&D.  If you feel that the large profits that your company is either making or in pursuit of are immoral, then why help them accomplish that?  Should not your intelligence be aimed at something that you can feel good about? something that helps you sleep at night?

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If you feel that the R&D that you are doing is hurting people either because of the actual products that you are making or because the work is for a for profit corporation and profit is inherently bad, then why live with that distraction? Your very career will become a moral crisis that you will struggle with for years.    Clear your conscience so that you will not be morally distracted from your efforts at learning and teaching.

I feel good about R&D for several reasons.  I feel good about profit because profit from a corporation gives me employment, I’m not sure how I and thousands of colleagues would feed and house our families were it not for the profits of my corporation, feeding and housing of families is a very moral act.   I feel good about profit because of the good things that money can do if it is in the right hands.  Money donated by employees and the corporation itself goes to help people in need through charities and through government programs.  Were it not for the profit of corporations, far more people would be much further in poverty. Profit is good in my particular company because some of it is reinvested in further learning and further development of knowledge and new products.

Second, discovery and development of knowledge is good for society.  Think of Corning Inc.’s discovery of Pyrex glass; the properties of that particular glass have enabled possibly billions of people around the globe to cook their food more efficiently and likely more safely over and over. The inventors of Pyrex have therefore helped to feed people more efficiently around the globe.  The simple act of inventing and developing new glass compositions and forming processes have served to help people.  Did the Corning scientist who invented this composition know in what way they were helping people at the time? Likely not, they were probably just trying to understand glass science and its properties. Yet their work has helped millions for decades now.  These are the types of things that R&D causes.

Knowledge helps people, ignorance and deception hurts people. “

Do you feel morally good, indifferent, or negative about your profession?

How Companies Should Behave More Like Universities

A quality engineering University does at least three things for society:

  1. Research and develop new materials, products and processes.
  2. Educate undergrads the basics and what they’re learning via professors and graduate students.
  3. Spin-off companies or sell intellectual property so new technology can be commercialized for the benefit of the public.

For the companies that heavily invest in high-tech R&D to generate future business, perhaps they should be looking to certain universities as models to innovate more effectively.  #1 above applied to company is of course the main function of most R&D divisions in a high-tech company. With #3, companies typically keep possession of their own businesses and IP and do not often spin-off. Role #2 however, may be a stretch for a company to embrace as something they should focus on; in role #2 I propose that the educators should be the managers, scientists, engineers and technicians and the students are those same managers, scientists, engineers and technicians.  We should be comfortable with wearing both “hats”, we should be full-time teachers and students.

I think the role of teacher in a R&D company is largely neglected, teaching skills are rarely developed if at all, they are only developed in a select few employees. I think this is a major mistake in R&D high-tech companies today.

The concept of collaboration, conferences, technical reviews and even internal monthly reporting is largely a teaching activity.  If you think about it we are teaching constantly but largely we do not teach with intention.  

Companies with large R&D investment in their business plans ought to accept the idea that almost all employees should be actively teaching and developing their teaching skills.

How much of your time is spent teaching and/or being taught throughout your work day?

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