Office Space in a Facebook Age

Milton may have been pining for his Swingline stapler in Office Space while banished to the basement, but there are some in these tough economic times that are actually pining for a fat severance (“redundancy” for our European friends) package to wander the world, pay for culinary school, or to splurge on that Vegas trip.  Whatever their motivations might be, it’s probably best to just keep your intentions to yourself, rather than publicly announcing your windfall.  The recent case of a Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) employee losing her severance package on account of Facebook comments she made underscores the speed at which news travels via social networks, the dangers of mixing social media usage within the workplace, and the notion that privacy and social networks don’t co-exist all that well.

In the RBS example, Katie Furlong was notified that her position was being eliminated and that she would be receiving a redundancy package of 6000 pounds (about $9,300).  Within minutes, she posted on her Facebook page, “I’m neither stupid nor naive . . . and quote (sic) honestly it is the best news ever as far as I am concerned!  Hung on by my fingertips to stick around long enough for a nice payout when they could’ve had me out long ago without a penny! More fool them! Haha! Xx”  A colleague saw the post and reported it to management.  Katie was first suspended then fired for breaching a “declaration of secrecy” amounting to “gross misconduct.”  All without receiving one single pence, shilling, or pound.  Ouch.

In a continuance, Katie sued RBS and the case is still awaiting trial.  But, the moral of the story is that you have to be careful what you say on social media sites, particularly when you’re using company-issued electronic devices.  The notion of an employee’s “reasonable expectation of privacy” is doubly difficult to prove in court when the employer has stated very clearly in its social media policy what is or is not acceptable and the ramifications for breaching the policy (e.g., termination).  So, if you’re an employer, be sure you have a social media policy in place first of all then make sure you disseminate that policy and enforce it.

Speaking of enforcement, FaceTime Communications does just that.  It offers a platform that enables organizations to apply granular controls for social networks.  If a firm is worried about what employees are saying about the company, you can set up a policy that allows content posted to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to be reviewed BEFORE it hits the Web – enabling perhaps the control of nasty parting expletives for departing individuals prior to the inevitable brand damage of association.

Wait too long and it might be too late.  But, as Mr. Irony is quick to point out, it cuts both ways.  Look at what happened to our Katie above.  So, be careful what you pine for because it may not always be as sweet as you hoped.  Just ask Lumbergh when Milton had his Swingline taken away.

Gazing Back at 2010

What a crazy year 2010 was for technology.  Facebook’s CEO was named Time’s Person of the Year, the iPad hit the market in a big way, and location-based services took off.  As we’ve been snuggled in for the holiday season and tossing back some libations with friends and family, we wanted to have a look back at what stoked people’s interests or got us freaked out in 2010.

Facebook:  The Social Networking Beast
The hugely popular social networking site continued its meteoric growth in 2010, with the number of users crossing the half-billion mark.  A movie loosely documenting its humble beginnings was released; Mark Zuckerberg was named Time’s Person of the Year (the dude’s only 26!); and it’s the gold-standard for social media platforms.  Pretty heady stuff for a company that was founded just six years ago and had its roots as a way to check out your college classmates’ pictures and see where the eye candy’s at.

However, with this spectacular growth came heightened media scrutiny and shrill criticism from privacy advocates.  It also became a tastier target for hackers and other evildoers.  Despite these privacy and security issues, Facebook continues to be the platform of choice for third-party developers.  To its credit, Facebook has listened to user feedback and has responded accordingly.  That’s the beautiful thing about an open Internet that Zuckerberg likes to preach.  Word travels fast, which can be both a blessing and a curse.  And so far, his congregation is filled with believers.

Location-Based Services:  I Know Where You Are (and Where You’re Not)
Thieves have got to absolutely love the booming popularity of location-based services, such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook Places.  Marrying smartphones with GPS technology has spawned sites that let users “check in” wherever they’re at, notifying all their friends of their exact location at that moment in time.  Great concept if your friends that you’re telling are truly your friends.  Not a good concept if you’ve got folks on your “friends list” that shouldn’t be there or you’ve got the wrong privacy settings enabled on your smartphone, essentially giving a green light to applications like Foursquare to share your information with unauthorized folks.  Yikes.  Better make sure you hide that family-heirloom Rolex reeeeeeal gooood.

Collective Buying:  Power in Numbers
The tough economic times of these last couple years means that bargain-hunting has become the norm for many of us.  Enter Groupon and LivingSocial – a couple of sites that aspire to give the best deal on a broad range of products and services.  The key to their success is scrounging up the minimum number of persons to partake in a deal.  Once that threshold is crossed, everyone in the “group” gets that product or service at a great price.  If the quorum’s not met, no deal for you (thank you, Soup Nazi).

iPod, iPhone, iPad, iCha-ching
Aside from the dropped calls you (allegedly) get if you hold a 4G iPhone with the bottom half of your left palm, held at a 27 degree angle, with partly sunny skies, and your mother-in-law is in town, Apple can do no wrong.  Hard to believe this company was on its deathbed in the mid-1990s (for those of you who can remember).  Now, if Steve decides to stick an “i” in front of its next product, run out and buy some Apple stock that day.  The iPad is the latest Apple offering that it really didn’t invent but has marketed better than everyone else (both past and present).  Now, if Steve could just figure out a way to outdo the Most Interesting Man in the World, then he may just be worthy of his deity status.  (Norv’s boss would like you to know that these are his opinions and she makes no comment about buying stock or Steve’s deity status.)

Boxy but Good
People used to say this about Volvos.  Not the sexiest car around, but they were reliable and were safe.  The same can be said for the regulations starting to pop up now to address the social media phenomenon.  People normally get a little drowsy when they hear or see the word “regulation,” but it’s one of those necessary evils.

Many industries, such as financial services, energy, and healthcare, are turning to social media to market their products and services and extend their brand reach.  However, it was only a matter of time before the regulatory bodies started to catch up.  Case in point:  the financial services industry issued FINRA Regulatory Notice 10-06 in January 2010 to provide guidance on what brokerage firms and its representatives are and are not permitted to do with respect to social media.  And you can bet your bottom dollar/euro/pound that other industries will soon follow suit (we’re actually already starting to see this happen).

Social Media’s Playing with the Big Boys Now
When social networking first hit the scene, it was all about the hipsters and Generation Y’ers.  It was supposed to be a fad, limited to folks with too much time on their hands.  Well, I think it’s safe to say it’s here to stay.  Corporate types are on-board, real money is being generated, and your grandmother might even have a Facebook account.

The bigger issue is, “how can companies utilize social media safely without having it blow up in their faces, like what happened to Domino’s in 2009?”  This past year saw organizations, big and small, kick the tires and see what they could do with social media.  They also poked around to see what kinds of controls, if any, were available from technology vendors.  Just all part of the maturation process of a communications channel that promises to bring more excitement and innovation in 2011.

The above are just my musings on trends in 2010.  What were the biggie ones you saw this past year?  And don’t worry, you’ll still get your soup.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Social media may be all the rage these days, but when you look at the stats, the majority of financial institutions are still considered relative newbies when it comes to social media.  A study by Aite Group found that 21% of financial service executives surveyed describe themselves as “novices” and another 39% as “beginners.”  Only 8% labeled themselves as being competent with social media tools.

However, 90% of firms said they’ll have dedicated budgets for social media by 2012.  So, even though banks may not be chockful of experts just yet, they’re anticipating that the requisite expertise will be in place by 2012.  Already, you’re starting to see social media-specific job titles and regulations crop up.

Whether it’s extending the corporate brand, promoting products, or just answering customer inquiries, social media has been proven to be an effective weapon for organizations prospecting for new customers or looking to inject themselves into the public consciousness. . . and to do so cost-effectively.  However, care must be taken to ensure that this new form of marketing or customer relations does not backfire on a company.

The Internet is already awash with horror stories of organizations being done in or damaged severely by social media.  Look at what happened when a large PR firm made some not-so-flattering remarks about the city of Memphis, shortly before presenting to the worldwide communications group at FedEx, Memphis’ largest employer.  And, we all remember the Domino’s PR nightmare from 2009.

The bottom line is that social media can be your friend or foe.  If managed properly, it can be a very good (and profitable) friend.  That’s why banks are keen on embracing social media but only doing so if it can be done safely.  What with all the social-media-specific guidelines that are emerging for the financial services industry, it behooves banks and brokerage firms to behave responsibly and respect these rules.  It’s very possible indeed to reap the tidy profits of the good ol’ days while still operating within the law.

Which inevitably begs the question, “Well, how can they act responsibly?”  Deploying platforms like FaceTime’s Socialite is a good start.  Socialite enables organizations to monitor and manage social networking content, including the contextual archiving of the events and activities posted to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  In essence, FaceTime paves the way for financial services firms to safely conduct their business while allowing their users to engage in social media activities.

So, the question really becomes at this point, “Brother, can you spare me a dime so I can kickoff my social media plan and start making profitable inroads into the social world?”

Get Federated or Get Obliterated

From Jae Kim – Director of Social Media Products, FaceTime Communications

About fifteen years ago, I was happy with my desktop applications installed. The computer was a glorified calculator, typewriter, and video game machine back then. When I powered up my desktop, I was either going to write quick proof-of-concept Pascal code, type up school reports, or play Doom. All executables and contents that I used were installed on my hard drive. Whenever I wanted to talk to friends, I picked up the landline and called. Whenever I needed references checked, I headed out to the library.

These days, the computer has turned into an all-in-one communications device. When I fire up my laptop, I immediately open my browser, check out the latest tech news on Twitter, read what my friends are up to on Facebook, and respond to emails. No longer do I have to pick up the phone. I just open my IM client to chat with my friends or use Google to look up the answer to any fleeting question that I may have at the moment. I cannot possibly imagine using a computer without a network connection. A computer without an Internet connection is as good as dead weight.

In this post, I would like to make a case that this increasing connectivity is not a trend isolated to computer networks, but applies to social networks as well. The urge to share things and get connected has deeper roots within our human nature. It is something that cannot be ignored and must be harnessed to make the leap into the next stage of networking.

I’ll give a few examples of what it means to technology evolution and how it impacts the adoption of new communications tools. I would argue that the same is true with social media and lay out the likely scenario for social networks to get federated.

For long term viability of social networks as communications platforms, I would argue that social networks must get federated to survive or face the inevitability of obsolescence and eventual obliteration.

1. Internal-Only Email to Email for Everyone

For those of you old enough to remember Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) must have used internal-only email and messaging systems. It used to be that workstations connected to the main server comprised the early intranet. When you wanted to see whether someone was available, you would type ‘finger’ or ‘w’ to see if the other party was online. If so, you were in luck. You could use ‘chat’ to have a real-time chat (what’s known as IM today). If the person was not online, then you had an option to send email using ‘mail’.

As server and workstations became popular, more companies started to adopt these internal-only email systems. Soon, it became obvious to everyone that linking these islands of email services made sense and would create disproportionately more value for everyone. Companies started to federate their email islands to their partners’, accelerating the adoption of the ARPANET mail format.

Some held back saying it would create security concerns in both leaking sensitive information and receiving unwanted files (viruses). Today, no one disputes the value of having a global email system and being connected to it. These concerns were valid, however. People have built solutions around these security issues, and they have given rise to the Data Loss Prevention (DLP), security, and SPAM-filtering industries.

2. AOL – the Walled Garden

America Online (AOL) in the late 1990s was unstoppable. They made the Internet easy for millions by simplifying the technical configuration required to sign up for a service and to dial in the AOL server farm. AOL essentially had the same network model as the LAN-based DEC architecture. AOL subscribers would log on to their servers and see other subscribers who were online, exchange IM/emails, and browse AOL-hosted company sites. AOL was a huge LAN network where you couldn’t access content outside of AOL.

At the height of AOL’s popularity, there were 30+ million subscribers. It became so popular that every brick-and-mortar store was buying AOL keywords to reach AOL subscribers (the similarity is striking with what we see today with Facebook pages, as Peter Yared points out on his Venturebeat.com article).

But AOL did not leverage the explosive growth of content outside AOL’s walled garden. As people found richer content outside the AOL network and companies realized they had to make separate investments to reach non-AOL users, users and content creators started to migrate.

Only after losing more than two-thirds of its peak subscribers did AOL start to retool itself into an Internet portal site, i.e., a gateway to an open Internet. In effect, AOL finally dismantled the walls around its isolated garden and federated with the rest of the Internet, albeit only after paying a heavy price.

3. Disjointed IM Networks to Federation

After ICQ became successful and acquired by AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google launched their own instant messaging networks. Again, people were chatting in a similar approach as the DEC server/workstation model. AOL users were able to IM with AOL users, MSN users with other MSN users, and so forth.

Unlike islands of email services, technologies were available to federate these services in their early days. However, each provider stood their ground and couldn’t work out an agreement to federate. It was only after enterprises started to deploy their own enterprise IM servers and federate with each other that AOL and others began to federate with other IM networks.

IM network providers refused to give up control over their user base to the detriment of the long-term benefit of doing so. But, the fact is that people have been getting around these disjointed networks by creating aggregator IM clients to combine AOL, MSN, Yahoo, and Google Talk networks (not to mention Skype and Facebook – check out IM+ for the latest attempts at building the ultimate aggregator). It’s futile to resist improvised user workarounds. You have to adapt your service to support these workarounds as valid use cases.

4. What About a Federation of Social Networks?

If we have learned any lessons from email, AOL, and instant messaging, it’s that social networks should federate with each other to create a global exchange of real-time status updates. It’s not a zero-sum game. As social networks federate with each other, the value of the resulting network is far greater than the sum of disjointed networks.

We are starting to see this happen already. Twitter has shared its feeds with LinkedIn and Facebook. MySpace is now connected with Facebook. Yammer, which has developed a social networking platform for enterprises, is connected to Microsoft Sharepoint.

But then there are signs of resistance, as evidenced by Facebook’s and Google’s policies not to share friends’ lists.

Walled-garden policies invite users to create workarounds. Just as islands of IM networks motivated users to create IM aggregators like Trillian and Meebo, preventing users from sharing friends’ lists is already prompting users to create workarounds, such as Facebook friend exporter. Rather than resisting federation, social networks need to embrace them.

In reality, however, those who are in control seld
om relinquish it voluntarily. History tells us that federation will be a gradual process and will pick up steam only when the perceived value outside Facebook outweighs what’s found within Facebook. For that perception shift to occur, someone must create a more compelling use case outside Facebook.

What might cause this perception shift? I have no idea. But I can tell you that it won’t be called social networking, but rather, something else. I couldn’t agree more with Pete Cashmore at RWW: it’ll be someone who introduces a different communication paradigm than what we know as a “status update” today.

When that next wave happens, users will start to see greater value outside Facebook and will force Facebook to fully federate with other social networks. Until then, I expect to see continued resistance from leading networks. And yes, Google will join the race soon, and things are going to get a lot more interesting before federation is a household term.

Step aside. There’s a new social media sheriff in town…

The announcement last week that financial services behemoth, Citi, was looking for an attorney to oversee its social media activities underscores the influence that social media holds in today’s business world and the still-evolving legal ramifications stemming from ill-advised usage of social media tools.  No industry is further ahead on social media guidelines than the financial services industry.  The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) issued social-media specific guidelines in January 2010.  Known as Regulatory Notice 10-06, these guidelines specify what types of social media content needs to be monitored and archived.  The Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the UK followed soon thereafter with its own guidelines on social media, illustrating that the explosion is taking place on a global level.

Other industries are taking a cue from financial services, too, and have either started to issue guidelines on social media (e.g., energy and utilities) or are in the process of issuing them (e.g., pharmaceuticals).  Even individual states, like Florida, have updated their General Records Schedule to require the retention of social media communications.  The bottom line is that regulators are keen to keep pace with the dynamism of social media and are trying to establish frameworks for managing social media activities for their respective industries.

In the case of Citi, they’ve taken it one step further by initiating a search for an associate general counsel to focus solely on social media.  Among the many responsibilities of this new role are protecting Citi’s intellectual property, working with specific business counsel to secure approval of content, establishing consistent processes for vetting and replying to comments in interactive environments (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, etc.), and promoting consistent policies.

The fact that Citi has created a role just for social media shows just how seriously the Wall Street giant is taking the phenomenon and is taking a proactive approach to establishing itself as the leader in this nascent practice area.  Take, for instance, Anna O’Brien, the VP of Social Media at Citi.  She’s credited with helping Citi become the first financial services company to have a verified Twitter account and is (obviously) a huge advocate of social media.  She spoke at the Business Development Institute (BDI) conference in NYC a couple weeks ago about how social media is a powerful marketing weapon.  Then, you’ve got the folks at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, who have been championing social media as an effective marketing and prospecting tool for financial advisors.  Morgan sees a well-defined social media strategy as critical to delivering on clients’ needs and expectations.

And it’s not just Social Media attorney titles that we’re seeing.  More and more often we’re starting to see the appearance of titles like Social Media Compliance Manager and Product Manager Social Media on job boards.  In fact, when one does a search on LinkedIn for “social media compliance,” nearly 13,000 people turn up in the search results here in the US.  So, Citi and Morgan Stanley are not alone is recognizing the importance of social media.

As the conversation moves from our email clients to the social network, Gartner suggests that for 20% of us business users, social media will become the primary mechanism for interpersonal communications by 2014.  Here at FaceTime, we see an increasing amount of content passing through these social networking sites.  This may be daunting, but platforms such as Socialite help firms, particularly those in regulated industries, remain in compliance with the emerging guidelines specific to social media.  From pre-review moderation of content to the contextual logging and archiving of activities and events, FaceTime can enable folks like Citi’s associate general counsel-to-be execute his or her job duties with more peace of mind.

A Challenge for Enterprises in Adopting Social Media: Employee Privacy

From Jae Kim – Director of Social Media Products, FaceTime Communications

There have been a couple of posts regarding privacy on this blog. Although these days people don’t seem to mind sharing lots of personal information on social networks, there are still many who feel uneasy about sharing data online. It looks like most teens and 20-somethings fall in the former category, while those in their 30s or older tend to fall in the latter. I suppose one reason why younger people are more open to sharing personal information is because they tend to experiment and are comfortable with stepping into the unknown.

When I think about privacy, I think of access control (I can’t help myself, I’m a software geek). Privacy is essentially hiding information from those who we don’t want to know and granting access to those who we deem appropriate. Take my birthday. It should be accessible to my friends and family, but it should not be accessible to a random stranger. By now, it should be clear that I’m in the camp that cares about privacy of personal data.

I think I take reasonable precautions when entering and sharing personal information online. Even before Facebook opened its doors, I was a user of many websites, such as Flickr, Youtube, AOL, Hotmail, and Yahoo to name a few. I don’t recall all the sites that I signed up for, and I certainly don’t remember all the personal information that I divulged for instant gratification of what each site offered.

My means of privacy control? Information tampering to varying degree. Whenever I would sign up for a website that doesn’t scream “trustworthy” (don’t ask me how I determined what site is trustworthy or not – it’s just a gut feeling), I would simply give slightly misleading information. Instead of spelling my name as Jae, I would spell it as Jay, for example. After all, they both get pronounced the same.

People improvise and conjure up creative solutions to problems that they encounter in real life. If you don’t provide an official way of doing something that users feel comfortable with, they will create their own workarounds.

I see the same thing happening still with many social networking sites. People have multiple accounts on Facebook even though its terms of use explicitly bans the practice. Why? Because users feel the need to create multiple identities for whatever reason.

Sometimes people create two accounts, one personal and the other professional. Sometimes, developers create a separate test account to run tests against applications that they just created. Sometimes, people create a new account to get a fresh start. Sometimes, people create a hidden account with malicious intent.

Now all these practices are lumped together as “illegitimate uses” by Facebook’s terms of use. This creates tension between Facebook and its users as well as a host of other implications for enterprises who are trying to embrace Facebook.

As you might know, organizations are just starting to grapple with the ever-growing user base of Facebook and have been putting together corporate social media policies as a result. As a legal entity, any large enterprises (or SMBs for that matter) are sensitive to the legal implications stemming from employees willfully violating Facebook’s official policy. In order for organizations to make Facebook the official social networking site, they have to be aware of what kind of information is flowing in and out of Facebook. To do that, they will have to air this dirty laundry of ad-hoc privacy workarounds for all their employees.  

But hey, this is private information. The reason why users created multiple accounts is precisely to avoid exposing certain pieces of information to certain groups of people and, most likely, that group of people includes your boss and HR team. Hence, enterprises are in limbo. They see the clear need to embrace popular social media, but it’s unclear to them how to address this privacy concern for all their employees. This is why it’s so important for organizations to develop and disseminate clear social media policies – try to eliminate as many grey areas as possible.  Once they’ve educated their employees on the policy, then the matter turns to enforcement.  Platforms like FaceTime Communications’ Socialite enable organizations to enforce the social media policies they’ve developed.  Features such as granular application control, contextual archiving, and moderation are just some of the capabilities that make it easier for organizations to monitor and manage their users’ social networking activities.

With such a platform in place, both employers and employees know their respective bounds and everyone can go about their jobs accordingly.   Ahhhh, ain’t technology a beautiful thang??

The Headmaster Has Spoken

On November 11th, the United Kingdom’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) announced that, starting in November 2011, mobile phone conversations by traders and other client-facing staff will have to be recorded (Policy Statement 10/17).  Specifically, firms have to record all “relevant conversations” for a period of six months on company-issued phones.  This new rule is designed to prevent market abuse and insider trading across the trading spectrum, including commodities, OTC instruments, futures, options, and ETFs.

Although at first read, it sounds draconian, when evaluated against the myriad accounting scandals and financial crises of the past fifteen years, the new rule makes sense.  It really is just an extension of firms’ existing practice of recording landline calls.  Whether it’s for risk management, dispute resolution, or compliance purposes, the need to record calls (whether landline or mobile) is real.  These days, brokers and traders have numerous communications channels at their disposal.  There are landlines, mobile phones, instant messaging, SMS, social media, peer-to-peer, and the list goes on and on.  Yet, their end goal remains the same:  execute deals, make money, clock fat bonuses.  Doesn’t matter what communications modality they use.  The raison d’etre of financial services firms is to make money.  Simple as that.  Any controls and regulations that are there to prevent global catastrophes, such as what happened in the fall of 2008, need to be evaluated objectively and with foresight to ensure that they meet current and future requirements.

Enter Policy Statement 10/17.  Although some firms have shown resistance to this new rule, it really is a natural evolution of the increasing regulatory control over these new real-time communications channels.  In the US, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has issued social media-specific guidelines (e.g., Regulatory Notice 10-06) for its 4,700 member brokerage firms and 637,000 registered securities representatives.  The explosion of sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter is taking the mobile phone one step further.  They’re just another communications option for brokers and dealers to exploit.  If a broker is tied up in a meeting and can’t chat on his or her phone, he or she can simply SMS, IM, or use Facebook to send a message.

Although PS10/17 may seem like the ornery ol’ Headmaster wielding a big stick, it’s simply a reflection of the ever-changing dynamics in the communications landscape for financial services firms.

Social Media. There is no substitute.

For you Risky Business fans out there, the title may ring a bell.  Joel may have driven his dad’s Porsche in the movie, but today, it’s social media driving the Porsche brand.   Much like what’s happening in other industries (think retail, financial services, and sports, just to name a few), the social media tide has swept up the automotive industry as well.  The widespread use of social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, at the recent L.A. Auto Show is testament to this.  Nearly every car manufacturer utilized a social media tactic to drive awareness and brand recognition for its new car launches.  For instance, Porsche hosted a live tweet chat with one of its top product managers.  Audi made its head of design available for interviews to bloggers and social media power-users.  Even the more traditional US firms, Ford and GM, used Facebook and Twitter to spark interest in its Fiesta and Camaro models, respectively.

And then there’s Toyota.  Fresh off its stuck accelerator debacle, Toyota kicked its social media strategy into high gear to make amends with the public and its customers.  It turned to Facebook and Twitter to set the record straight and to give customers an opportunity to vent, submit feedback, suggest improvements, etc.  Toyota’s Facebook page has nearly 300,000 folks “liking” it, and the company was lauded for using real people in its Twitter activity.  In fact, it tweeted photos of the launch of its latest-generation RAV4 EV at the L.A. Auto Show.  Pretty impressive comeback for a company that was the butt of many a joke earlier this year.

What does this all mean?  It’s all well and good that the automakers have warmed up to social media as extensions of their marketing department.  In times where there’s a premium on fiscal pragmatism, firms like Ford and GM must rely on getting the most out of their marketing dollars.  And it’s the social media sites that enable them to extend their brand reach without breaking the bank.  Now, sites like Foursquare and Twitter allow these car manufacturers to get the message out quickly and cost-effectively.  However, the carmakers must exercise a wee bit of caution when using these sites.  It’s way too easy these days for sensitive or confidential information to be leaked out.  Companies of all industries, not just the auto industry, are constantly wary of protecting their reputation and safeguarding their confidential information.  We all saw what a beating Toyota took in the press when it was trying to limit the PR damage done by its accelerator problems.

Social media can cut both ways.  Just as quickly as something positive can traverse the Internet, damaging information can move just as rapidly.  That’s why it’s important to have controls in place to manage and monitor the content that your employees are sending via social media tools.  Perhaps it might be OK for a Porsche product manager to speak on behalf of the company, but it might not be OK for Hans the Assembly Line Worker to do the same.  Fortunately, there’s a company like FaceTime that has solutions available to help carmakers protect sensitive information while also allowing them to fully exploit the marketing benefits of social media.

Remember, if Joel can get into Princeton with his pimp daddy ways, certainly, one should be able to use social media tools safely without giving up the family jewels.

Facebook Group = Crowdsourcing + Seamless UX

From Jae Kim – Director of Social Media Products, FaceTime Communications

Unlike the millions of people who saw the Social Network last weekend, I happily stayed at home with my iPad Twitter app, catching up on my numerous Google Alerts on ‘social network’.  While I may have missed out on a piece of pop culture, thanks to Facebook’s surprise re-launch of Group, I’m right back in it.

I watched the live announcement via livestream on TechCrunch and replayed statements from Mark Zuckerberg (CEO) and Chris Cox (VP of Product) afterward.

For the expert Facebook users who have created Groups, today’s (new) Group announcement may sound like the functionality has just been repackaged. Other than the simpler UX and more features like group chat, wiki-style document sharing, and email integration, it essentially is.

(Old) Group can be created with members that you invite and can be used to represent context or place.  But the most interesting part of Mark and Chris’ presentation was the discussion on how to address context.

Problem

Facebook is trying to solve the problem of representing social context in the Groups function, as it exists in real life.  For example, conversations that people have in a bar with a bunch of friends are different from conversations that happen at the dinner table.  They not only vary by topic and language used, but also with whom they’re conversing, the relationship with that person, and the expected level of privacy.  As such, it is not surprising to see that people vary their behavior based on their environment.  The question then becomes “how do you translate that to online behavior?”

Each message exchanged on Facebook is randomized through the News Feed, stripping context from each message and mixing alcohol-fueled status updates from your friends with pictures from your most recent family get-together.  Without context and with everything mixed together, information can be misconstrued, leading some users to limit the amount of information they share.

Since communication is key to Facebook’s success, this is a huge challenge for the company to address.
 
Solution Idea: Crowdsourcing + Seamless User Experience Design

How Facebook is addressing the problem is interesting.  It’s clear that the company wants to create context-specific groups and provide an easy way to interact within the Group, but how do you build that?

We’ve seen how a unilateral system-wide change can backfire (see Google Buzz) and anything that toes the privacy line will attract public scrutiny.  Trying to solve this problem with complex algorithms not only takes a long time, but also runs the risk of returning false positives.  Imagine what would happened if Facebook incorrectly put you, your significant other, and your ex in the same group.  That would be enough to warrant a privacy violation, potentially leading to Facebook users defecting from the site.

Facebook, however, is using ‘social’ as a solution.  Web 2.0 has enabled users to act as a consumer as well as a content creator.  Social networks are just a platform for these interactions.  Without user traffic and user content, social networks will cease to exist.

The most brilliant part of yesterday’s announcement is the focus on the user experience (UX) design.  After acknowledging the problem, Facebook is focusing on creating a seamless UX so that anyone can create and use groups.  With the new Group redesign, a user can create a group as easily as he or she sends a group email.  With the new group features, users will also have a history of context and interactions, as well as group chat and basic document sharing.  Most notably, Facebook will get to identify small groups that you choose to interact with.

This social solution hinges on getting the user experience right.  Facebook has to win over users with ease of use and create such a seamless UX that the process is almost invisible to the user.  If users do indeed find the UX seamless and reap the many benefits offered by groups, the experience will help Facebook overcome any problems or challenges.

These Facebook UX changes will mean more groups being spontaneously created by users, and that presents unique challenges for keeping all the shared contents compliant.  The ideal compliance solution should not only discover all these groups that employees created but also make it easy to apply policies to manage them effectively.

Thankfully, the FaceTime Socialite team has been focusing on solving these problems for quite some time already.  Anticipating the explosion of smaller groups, the upcoming release of Socialite will include capabilities to discover and manage large numbers of Facebook groups and pages.

Thus, if you have a compliance requirement driven by the proliferation of social media sites, you should be thinking FaceTime, all the time.

Get Smart with FaceTime

Kailash Ambwani is FaceTime’s CEO and President: 

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Today
is an interesting and memorable day for FaceTime.  Earlier, Apple introduced their next
generation iPhone and announced that it will use “FaceTime”  as the trademark for its new video calling
application. 

 

I’m
intrigued with the way that the use of the term “facetime” has evolved since we
named our company about a decade ago.  Ten
years ago, our solutions were for Instant Messaging and other “virtual facetime”
applications of that ilk.  Now,
“facetime” will refer to an application that enables callers to see one another,
while using a mobile device and that makes me reflect on how far we’ve come.

 

Today’s
announcement echoes our long held belief that the Internet has changed – from
one-way information delivery to two-way communication and collaboration. The
New Internet is increasingly about communications,
collaboration and communities – whether it’s social networking, instant messaging
or now video calling, users are increasingly bringing these tools into the
workplace (if you didn’t yet check out the results of our fifth annual survey –
then you’ll find some evidence of that here)

 

Our
agreement with Apple to transfer the FaceTime trademark to them comes as we are rebranding our company to better reflect our
capabilities.  From our virtual facetime beginnings 10 years ago, our
solutions have continued to evolve and renaming our company will better reflect
how we help enterprises leverage new communication in a secure and compliant
manner.

 

So,
it’s an exciting day.  When I look around
at these new communications tools – like a video calling application on a phone
-I’m reminded of the old TV shows (I want no comments or jokes about my age…) with
secret agents running around with video watches tracking down the bad guys.  It’s amazing what we can now do.  I guess shoe phones and the cone of silence
aren’t too far away. 

Good thing our
company will be there to keep the networks and the data secure and compliant.