Social media hasn’t just empowered today’s kids; it has enabled business leaders to more effectively communicate, think strategically and facilitate an agile, responsive organization. But many leaders still harbor perceived fears of security risks if not the danger of losing their jobs. Others just don’t think they have the time or the need. What needs to change in order for business leaders to be able to become a true social media maven and deliver what is expected of them?
Contributors

• • Claudia Keith, Chief Communications Officer, City of Palo Alto, CA
  • Dr. Jonathan Reichental, Chief Information Officer, City of Palo Alto

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Transcript

Sanjog Aul [00:00:26]:

Hello and welcome to CIO Talk Radio. To learn more about the show, please visit www.ciotalkradio.com. And as always, we invite you to join the discussion on Twitter, hashtag CTR live, and look for this show as hashtag communication as well as hashtag social media. Today’s topic is Why Business Leaders Should Embrace Social Media  . And our guests for today’s show are Dr. Jonathan Reichental, who is the CIO of the City of Palo Alto, California. Good morning, Jonathan. How are you?

Dr. Jonathan Reichental [00:00:55]:

Good morning. I’m doing great. Thank you very much.

Sanjog Aul [00:00:58]:

Great. Great to have you. And we also have Claudia Keith, who’s the chief communications officer of the City of Palo Alto, California. Good morning, Claudia. How are you?

Claudia Keith [00:01:06]:

Good morning. I’m just fine. Thank you.

Sanjog Aul [00:01:09]:

Great. So social media is everywhere and it’s the new thing or perhaps we cannot call it the new thing because it’s happening for a couple of years now. The kids are all doing it and it’s a lot of fun to always see, what the new thing is around the corner. But if it has become a unique tool for business leaders in terms of how they communicate, what is the value that they can bring using this tool? And we feel that a lot of leaders in these roles still stay away from it and they don’t see the point or they are restricted in what they can say, so they’re not getting the full value. So we thought of inviting Jonathan who’s one of the top 100 social CIOs, and we wanted to have him as an evangelist for the medium and to see what’s so special about it and how is he leveraging it. And also Claudia, who, is the chief communications officer for the same city and see what kind of environment has been created, what is being done so that there is some innovation while creating some, defined boundaries so that it doesn’t come and haunt us. So with that said, first question for you, Jonathan. We are talking about, a leader, a business leader, and we talk about they should communicate better and they should be able to reach or connect with internal and external constituents effectively. Do you think the traditional methods go back 10 years, did they work or not work? What prompted you to say let’s go and leverage this new medium?

Dr. Jonathan Reichental [00:02:37]:

It’s what’s really apparent to me and I think my colleagues is the number of options we have has certainly become more complex. And complex and understanding what we need to use, when we need to use it, but it’s also given us more capabilities. So it’s sort of a mixed bag. So I look back just 10 years, as you point out, it’s not so long ago. And we’re talking about really talking about email and we’re talking about even newsletters and sort of the more old school way of getting messaging out. But today we have email, which is still king. We have newsletters, many organizations still continue to use those. But now we have this vast array of tools. So as a leader, I would say on the one hand, it’s harder to think about what’s the right channel, when do I use that channel. But the way I look at it is this new sort of toolkit we have to almost in some ways laser focus a message to a certain audience or broadcast to a broad audience, these tools have given us incredible capability that didn’t exist. So, we’re making that migration. It is a work in progress. I think we’re still early. I still think a lot of leaders and organizations are figuring this out. But this has been transformational. This 10-year timeline that you alluded to has been transformational in the capabilities that leaders have to get their message out, to their respective audiences.

Sanjog Aul [00:04:25]:

So Claudia, when you look at this new channel, which is social media, do you see that as a disruption to a relatively well structured communications environment that is created so that while you’re able to do the job of getting the word out, to internal external constituents, but it doesn’t create risk? Or do you see this as an opportunity where you say, okay, there is always going to be something unknown with a new channel, but it just allows you and your department and the leaders that you’re supporting get better. What’s your first take on this?

Claudia Keith [00:05:03]:

Well, essentially we’re in really what I call a transformation of communications. The traditional methods of getting the word out, they still work. To be an effective communicator, you still have to have a clear vision and the ability to express viewpoints, but you may be delivering them in 140 characters via Twitter. So it’s really the delivery mechanism. So I think it depends on what business leaders really smart, visionary business leaders are embracing social media. You really can’t, for example, look across the spectrum at any CEO, who doesn’t have some form of social media as part of their company’s communication strategy. That said, I think it’s the fear of the unknown. It’s the Wild West, if you will, of what people look at in social media, thinking there are kind of no rules, no foundational accountability. And so I think that’s part of the hurdle. But if you really look at how people are getting their information, particularly the next generation, the younger generation. They’re not reading newspapers. They’re not, for the most part, watching local television news or anything else like that. They’re looking through technology, and so I think it’s imperative that business leaders realize how people are digesting information, wherever and whenever they want. So it’s really an adaptation that I think is in the beginning to middle stages here.

Sanjog Aul [00:06:44]:

So, Jonathan, do you think if we were to take social media as just a channel, it is undermining its potential? How about taking it to the next level of calling it a newly found, not exactly freedom, but autonomy of being able to put things out which doesn’t require super structuring of a message. It’s more conversational and that’s what people connect better with versus a well crafted press release or another heavily edited, well documented letter of source that goes out because what your end goal is to be able to connect because many people communicate. In fact, there’s a book written on it. Many people communicate, but a few connect. Would you rather connect or just communicate?

Dr. Jonathan Reichental [00:07:31]:

Well, I’d like to do both. I think we’d certainly like to do both. I think it’s a very important question. There’s a right time for formal communications and I think there is the right time for a more informal type of getting the message out and connecting. So I think I don’t think we can choose one or the other. I think you’ve got to blend it in your organization. I think you have to the message has to be consistent with what you’re trying to achieve. You know, we at a city, we have to deal with some very serious things. And they have legal implications. They have policy implications. Many organizations, of course, have these things. So, you have a risk certainly trivializing certain things if you don’t use the right form of messaging and the right as a leader and I’m just one of several leaders, when I’m out there in the market talking to the public or even internally to large audiences, I represent the organization and we’ve got to get that messaging right. So this is a careful balancing act for all leaders. So understanding when to use formal versus informal. Now the informal is really powerful and that is what social media brings to the table. Sort of like just burst of thought, right? Perhaps there is a larger topic, maybe we’re dealing with this. And so if I kind of get back into my role, which is the CIO, there is a security event that’s happening and all organizations are being impacted and perhaps we’re just responding to it in a very we’ve got a formal approach, but people are wondering, well, what do I think about it or what do I think about the overall security posture of a certain technology? It might be interesting to just kind of have a stream of thoughts that are well thought out, and it helps people understand, well, I see where he’s coming from or it’s good to get his perspective. So I think that does lend itself. I can understand for Claudia though, it’s important that all of us as leaders are marching to the same story, and we’re getting that story accurately and clearly out to our communities. So we strike a balance. I think the heart of your question is really about, is it do we like the convenience of social media, which clearly it is convenient, versus the structure of years ago. And really the answer to me and living and breathing this every day is we got to do both and we got to figure out when to do each. There’s a time to do each.

Sanjog Aul [00:10:24]:

Claudia, would you say that there is a clear demarcation for an organization? If you were to write a playbook on how to use social media for business leaders and technology leaders, would you be able to draw a line and say on the left hand side, these are the dos and this is where you would use traditional media and on the right hand column, you will write all the things which are potentially also allowed through the social media. Is that clear?

Claudia Keith [00:10:50]:

No. I think there’s a whole lot of gray area in between. You have to approach social media just like any other strategic communications. As Johnson Johnson said, it’s a balance. So just because it’s simple and accessible doesn’t mean that you don’t approach it with the same thought that you would if you were writing a letter to your shareholders or an all employee email, things like that. You know, there’s risks simply because communication through social media is so immediate and can spread virally and so quickly. So there’s that speed factor that probably is a bigger risk than some other types of communication. But really, as communicators, we really need to approach the messaging and the content that we’re putting out on social sites just like we do any other kind of communication. So I think that’s an important thing to remember that it’s a delivery mechanism. And while what I call the wingspan of social media is incredible, and that’s one of the wonderful and scary things about it, I think for business leaders it is a misnomer that just because it’s so informal, quote, unquote, that that’s how your communication should be. Certainly, you want to strike that balance between being accessible, sharing information, having that two way conversation, which we haven’t really touched upon too much, but that is one of the just incredible benefits of social media for business leaders is that two way interaction. It’s really impossible to kind of get that immediate feedback in any other forum. And so I think that’s why the allure of it, and the power of it is so great. But all those protocols and all that kind of strategic thinking needs to go into whatever kind of messaging you’re putting out, whether it’s a blog post, whether it’s a Facebook post, a picture, a visual. So all that kind of thinking about messaging and the reflection on where you’re trying to get your institution to go to, it all still applies to social media. It’s just a different way I think of delivering it.

Sanjog Aul [00:13:04]:

So, Claudia, would you, actually, this this is what Jonathan just mentioned. He said that when I am on social media or any kind of communication platform, I’m representing the organization and it’s very accurate. However, people follow leaders versus following an organization. Would you allow the freedom to a business leader in your seat as a chief communications officer to let their personality shine through or they will always be caged under the organizational value?

Claudia Keith [00:13:33]:

Yeah. You see good examples of this. CEOs who are on social media as themselves as the CEO of an organization. And it’s hugely important to be authentic. There’s nothing worse than sort of not letting that voice go through. For example, Barack Obama has his own Twitter account and he signs that I think it’s B O. So it’s coming from him. Now I don’t know whether he’s sitting there tweeting, but it sounds like it’s in his voice, and that is really important. But he or any other business leader would still have to wear that hat. In other words, you’re not putting things out on social media that would be so far afield of what you are as a representative of the executive of your organization, but that are in your own voice. And that’s really no different than, say, if you were speaking on behalf of your organization at a press conference, for example. You want to have your own voice as a CEO or a business leader come through within parameters. So it’s not a free for all, but definitely being authentic is hugely important on social media.

Dr. Jonathan Reichental [00:14:50]:

Can I add to that, Sanjog Aul, actually? Please. It’s an important point. I really love what Claudia was saying there. And I think as an example of one of the ways we sort of work around that is, and I’ll talk specifically about myself. So I’ve a number of Twitter accounts, it’s not just one, right? So I do have a City of Palo Alto, CIO Twitter account, for example, that goes through a different filter than my own personal Twitter account, which is just Rycantel. So through the City account, clearly, it’s a formal voice. It should represent the City well and it should represent my domain, our domain, which is technology and technology and government. And it needs to be, as Claudia said, we try to make it authentic and give it personality. But I have to say on my personal and this is a really interesting area to follow because again we haven’t figured it out. There unfortunately is a blurring of the life between work and personal life now. It’s nowhere near as clear as it used to be in the past. But I use I’m very clear that my personal kind of is me outside it’s my broader personality. And whilst I do, of course, tweet items of interest around the technology spaces, which is where I play, there’s a lot of fun things in there too, things about my interest in movies or traveling and different things. I would say this, though, even though it is my personal account and it is informal, I’m very respectful of the role I play in the city and my professional life, so I keep it to a high bar. So there’s a way kind of to mix to have the ability to be formal through one account and be a bit more personal through the other. And then of course the followers get to choose which accounts to follow.

Sanjog Aul [00:16:58]:

Let’s take a quick break. We’ll be right back. And when we come back, Jonathan, would love to understand what all did you do or in what all ways when you communicated as a leader through social media actually helped specifically in terms of getting your word out, getting the change of hearts and getting certain things done which you would feel at this time traditional methods may not have brought about? And in what ways do you think other leaders can at least dip their toe into it so that this starts showing them some examples of how it can be leveraged successfully and success more good things will follow if they were to embrace social media. Please stay tuned listeners. We’ll be right back.

Sanjog Aul [00:19:32]:

Welcome back. So Jonathan, what are some of the good things that have happened, some of the good experiences you’ve had in communicating, with people internally and or externally that has helped you incrementally or maybe transformatively in terms of creating value or getting connected with the world out there?

Dr. Jonathan Reichental [00:19:52]:

Sure. I mean for me personally it’s been terrific for my professional life. I can point to specific things here in a moment, in how I’ve been able to reach completely new audiences, have a voice on some pretty big government civic innovation topics and the technology arena in general. One of the things about social media relative to other or old world media is it’s a great democratizer. It allows the little guy to sort of speak to the masses if they can and if they can attract them. That’s both a benefit, but also significant risk. So I’ll be real specific. We one of the things that we advocate for here in the City of Palo Alto, we’re strong believers in open government and in transparency and Government 2.0, so the next generation of delivering government. And this is a really fascinating and broad topic, lots of players across the spectrum, and we want to have a voice in that. We want to we have a point of view. We want to influence the topic. It’s a very positive topic in a domain, in a part of the economy that unfortunately is going through a tough time right now. And the government doesn’t have a strong perception by the public, certainly at the federal level and it gets better as you go to state and even better at local. So social media has allowed me as a technology leader in a government context to basically state our position and champion certain aspects. You know, one topic in particular is open data, which is essentially making our data sets available to our communities or giving them back to the people they belong. Why is that important? How is that a driver of change, positive change for government and positive change for community? So I can directly correlate my ability and our organization’s ability to tap into social media with our influence we’ve had on this broader national debate we’re having around government openness and transparency. So that’s on sort of the organizational level. On a personal level, again, it’s a choice, right? So I’ve chosen to be outspoken about a number of technology domains, whether it’s cloud computing or the phenomena of big data. And I’ve established this is what I believe, this is my position. And as a result, I’m very privileged to be asked to speak on these topics, and I can be then part of the national dialogue. So social media has given me as a professional and as a professional leader a voice that I could have had in a sort of a more traditional world, but it’s accelerated it, it’s made it louder, and that’s really sort of benefited me from a personal brand and professional basis. I think in turn, by the way, if I do the work well and other leaders do the work well through this forum, it absolutely benefits the organization. It creates, you know, it’s very good for enhancing the brand of the organization you work for. And that’s all, by the way, in the context of people doing it right and not obviously making a mess of it.

Sanjog Aul [00:23:42]:

So, Claudia, if you were being paid $1,000 an hour as a consultant and you were to get invited to an organization and you are a communications evangelist and someone who’s helping them take communication to the next level, and you’re told to use, okay, how about social media? Would you be able to give a tangible, quantifiable ROI and that to show it as positive? Because now that you’re using social media with your business leaders, it is actually helping you get your message to the right people timely and making those people get connected much better with their constituents.

Claudia Keith [00:24:17]:

Well, one of the really great things for communications professionals with social media is you do have some analytics associated with that. So the old days, you would put out a press release or a message. And if the traditional media used it, you think, oh, great, you’re getting your message up. But there’s really no way to find out whether that’s having any penetration, whether these people read that or think anything about it. So I think that the really and it’s still, I think, in the initial stages, and it’s not a perfect world in terms of measurement, but we can see who is engaging with us on social media. You can see demographics. You can see where they’re coming from. You can see what topics are they interested in. And all of that is hugely beneficial for communications professionals. So having those analytic tools, that are beyond sort of the traditional, if you got a front page story on The New York Times, it was worth x ad dollars, which is a very old school way of measuring your communications effectiveness. There are so many tools now where you can really look at who is engaging, who is getting your message, what’s interesting to them, why they are coming to whether it’s your site, why they’re engaging with you on Twitter. So that, I think, for communications professionals, has been just a real sea change. We really have not had any kind of data as to whether we’re moving the bar. I think in the old school world of ads, for example, communications or public relations efforts were always sort of a stepchild, and that is really no longer the case. You really see a blend of advertising and social media combining particularly in corporations, driving sales. And so there’s really a direct value proposition from having a strong social media presence tied to sort of your organizational and your business structure. So that is really for corporations, I think really different. In the government world, you know, you see some really wonderful things happening. People think of government, quote unquote, as sort of this nameless, faceless bureaucracy. And the really successful cities or local governments or even if you look at political campaigns, how social media has really changed that landscape. Barack Obama was elected because he ran the first time, he ran a campaign that really was a complete, different campaign using social media, reaching different demographic groups. And that is a huge sea change in how communications and social media writ large is being used. So governments, I think, are really trying to adapt, and become more personal, connect with communities. You can connect with your constituents in a completely different way. It’s no longer sort of just pushing information out there and hoping, wow, maybe they’ll think of the city that we work for as this friendly place. It really is a two way dialogue. And for communicators who haven’t had that ability before, that is a real difference. So I think from the way that city and governments are using social media to the way large corporations, and multinational corporations are using social media, has really sort of altered the landscape. And for communications professionals, looking to see who and how you’re influencing, how your messaging is being absorbed, what resonates, and having that immediacy is really invaluable.

Sanjog Aul [00:28:31]:

Jonathan, if you were to look at the way this is working for you, are you getting the—you mentioned that you have a personal Twitter. Just by saying that these tweets are my own, do you get the immunity to write whatever and then basically the organization banks on you being countable versus being accountable? And on the other hand, would you say that this is actually when you’re sending out a tweet for representing as CIO of City of Palo Alto, is that supposed to be reviewed? How much of caging that is going to be required for a business leader if they say I want to do it and I would like blessing from the communications?

Dr. Jonathan Reichental [00:29:13]:

It’s a great question. I’ll just say from the outset, having my own personal account certainly does not give me that kind of freedom and leverage you spoke of. There’s that blurring between who I am as an individual outside of work and me as a professional in my work. The world is no longer allowing that separation. With so much exposure and this new visibility that an individual has, judgments can be made at any point in time. Sadly, that’s a reality for all of us. I think that is something that needs to be taken seriously and unfortunately, we’ve seen how people who don’t fully understand the full impact of social media can impact their careers when they make a comment that millions read. So I think you’ve got to represent yourself and your organization at the right level regardless of the account. That’s an important learning. Here at the City of Palo Alto, Claudia allows us and she understands who the professionals are who understand this, and doesn’t necessarily enforce a really strict rigor. But she has great oversight and will intervene if she thinks that perhaps the messaging needs to be more careful. That’s not the case by the way in many organizations. I have had exposure to in the private sector lots of organizations that now require each tweet or communication that goes out has to be vetted and sometimes exhaustively to the point where you’ve missed the timeliness of the communication, and or it becomes so bureaucratic that many folks just don’t want to participate in it. And that in itself is unfortunate. So, I think what’s happening here at the city is we’re deferring to people’s good judgment, their professionalism, that those that work for government understand the privilege and responsibility we have. Through both of my accounts and particularly my City account in this case, I take that responsibility very seriously and I think all leaders should.

Sanjog Aul [00:32:08]:

It does. So thank you so much. We’ll take a quick break listeners. We’ll be right back. And Claudia, I’d like to come back with this idea of the word fear, it seems like the undertone with social media related communication specifically by business leaders. And any kind of fear, it stifles innovation. And if it is an untold fear, it is something which we cannot define, then it is really making a big impact on otherwise what value you could have created. So our organizations and including government entities are going to be living with this fear or there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And if it is, then what is it? Please stay tuned listeners. We’ll be right back.

Sanjog Aul [00:34:39]:

Welcome back. So, Claudia, fear stifles innovation and this is an untold fear. We have not been able to quantify success or failure. So why not tilt more towards being positive and optimistic and give it a few shots and then see if it really hurts us?

Claudia Keith [00:34:57]:

Well, fear of the unknown is a natural tendency. When email first came and was sort of the new tool, you thought twice about pressing that send button for fear that you couldn’t retrieve that message when it goes out. So I think for business leaders who may not be comfortable using social media, fearing the ramifications because we do hear all of the horror stories about someone posting something on Facebook or tweeting something that really is inappropriate and sort of how quickly that can snowball. So I think, as business leaders become more comfortable using tools, I’m a big proponent of what a lot of folks are doing in reverse mentoring. Those of us of a certain generation are not digital natives. We’ve had to adapt and be flexible, but really being open to learning from the generation who are digital natives, who really don’t have that fear factor, but perhaps they need some guidance as to the appropriateness and the role that social media plays in communications. And hopefully we as communicators who’ve been in this space for a long time can offer guidance in that way. So I think that’s a very important point that business leaders who are fearful of what could happen by using Twitter need to reach out to younger employees who are comfortable with that, and embrace that. So just like any other kind of communication, you need to have a disaster social media plan in place. It’s better to participate in this space than drop out because it’s not going back to the old ways of communication. So I think having all those protocols, having those structures in place that gives business leaders some sense of comfort that the use of social media is being done in a thoughtful way, I think will help to kind of get over that hurdle. And once they start using tools and see the benefit of it, see the ability to reach their constituents, their audience, their customers in new and different ways, I think will help them get over that fear of the unknown, which is really just a human component.

Sanjog Aul [00:37:40]:

Jonathan, you, of course, earned this, the top social 100 CIOs and you did it because you like to do it, you did it enough. But there are a lot of people who have not followed the same lines. So either you’re special, you’re lucky because you have someone like Claudia, or the other people who are not doing it, either they don’t know how to do it, they don’t believe in it, or they’re fearful. What is happening? Why are you able to do it? We’re even working within government, which traditionally is more stringent, and there are many, many others who are not following suit. Because it is going to help them. It is going to help the organization. And I’m sure there are people like Claudia in their respective organizations who are willing to give the leeway.

Dr. Jonathan Reichental [00:38:25]:

Yes. That’s a great question. I think my situation is somewhat unique. I’ll describe it in a moment. But I can also share my experience with some colleagues who sort of are coming into this space more recently. In my role, I’ve worked in the private sector for quite a long time and I’ve always been in the technology field and I had a great opportunity a few years ago to lead technology innovation for an organization. So my role was to be on the lookout for the cool new things. So when products like LinkedIn and Twitter and others started to emerge, I was one of the first to notice it and then participate before most others, even when it wasn’t sure what this thing was, what are we doing and how do we describe it. So I was pretty early and so I think it’s about 7 years now since, for example, Twitter emerged. And so I’ve grown with it. I’ve had the unique opportunity some others have to have evolved with this whole new set of tools. And by the way, we’ve kind of been figuring it out together. There was no playbook on day one. And so, I found a nice place today that seems to work and resonate with the people that I have conversations with all around the world through social media. It is a surprise to me that we see good adoption of social media in the government sector. I think Claudia pointed out a couple of really key points around this. It’s giving governments just a significant new way of engaging with community, that goes way past the traditional methods. So whilst you might think government is more constrained and conservative, it’s been a blessing. It really is helping agencies get messages out in a timely way and cover the full spectrum of opinions and get that two way information back to them. And I think the third part of your question was about those that haven’t sort of dipped their feet into this, those leaders that are afraid and maybe their organizations are holding them back. In some ways, I can empathize with that. I think as a leader, you’ve got to make a choice. Now you might enter an organization that requires you to be in the market because it elevates your organization, it helps to sell products and services, and you should have a voice as a leader in that. But that’s a part of the marketplace. The other part is being a communicator in the public arena perhaps isn’t sort of your number one responsibility as delegated. So you may not be getting direction from your leadership in general or your communications department that yes, there’s a responsibility for you as a CIO or CXO to be engaged. So we’ll have to kind of defer that a little bit to the culture and to the direction of the business. If you have the freedom, though, and I think this is where you want to go with the question and the topic, my bet is going to be on do it. And to Claudia’s point, the benefits of doing it and doing it well and smartly, I call it thoughtful tweeting, will outweigh any of the reservations that you might have about participating. I’m no longer going to have the conversation with anybody about, you know, is this valuable or not? I mean, it’s proven value and social media is new media. It’s the way we’re communicating. So I can’t we can no longer have that debate. Is this just hype and will it go away? I mean, this is communications now. So I’m going to be in the camp of saying to folks, you know, I participate today. It’s benefited me professionally. It benefits my organization. And I think those that are on the fence and have the ability to do it, it’s really time to start to be a participant in the two way conversation.

Sanjog Aul [00:42:52]:

So, Claudia, if you were to wear the hat of a motivator versus a police, not a damper but a catalyst to allowing this but done in a fashion so that it doesn’t hurt the organization. What kind of environment or what kind of process would you put around this so that a CIO and other business leaders or organizational leaders are able to make the full use of it without jeopardizing the core interests?

Claudia Keith [00:43:18]:

Well, my approach to social media is kind of my approach to most communications. Particularly, I’ve worked in the public sector for a very long time and for some large organizations. I worked at California State University, which is the largest public university system in the country. And obviously, students are a huge component of who we were trying to reach. And so it was imperative that we be active on social media engaging with students in that way. So now in my role at the city, it’s really no different. My approach is not that I want to be the social media police. There are some organizations that have very strict protocols, very strict mandates about who can do what and saying what and many layers of bureaucracy, and that sort of goes against what social media is all about. That said, there are protocols and accountabilities that you have when you are on social media. But you need to build those in from the beginning. So at the city, if someone wants their own Twitter account for a department or for an individual, we go through a process of what are you trying to reach? Why do you think this tool is the best way? Who is going to be really active on that tool? There are some responsibilities and accountabilities that go with that. So I think that building those in at the beginning, talking to people about really what is their communications goal with social media, what are they trying to do. Because a lot of people think, oh, gosh. I want to be on Twitter. My department needs to be on Twitter. I need to be reaching people, and they really have no idea of what that means and whether that’s actually the most effective way to go. So I think having those conversations upfront really set the tone, because it’s impossible to be that policing. And frankly, I don’t think that’s really the atmosphere that you want to generate. It’s not innovative. It’s not creative. People think there’s a lot of risk if you give people the ability to tweet with no sort of guidelines. And so we set those up in the beginning with those conversations about reaching your audiences and reaching the right audiences through the right tools. So I think that is a better way to go. I’ve had instances where people come to me, and say, my employee has posted this on Facebook about something related to their work. What should I do? Should I make them take it down? It is a really dicey consideration, because while employees on their own personal Facebook have the right and the ability to do that, if they are in a certain position, it is reflective of their work product. I think Johnson made that point where there is no clear delineation between our personal and our professional lives anymore. It’s completely blended in this 24/7 world. But on the other hand, what kind of approach should you take? So I think there’s a lot of these conversations going, but my approach has been to have those conversations and protocols upfront. People really understand the responsibility that they do have, when they are on social media, whether it’s in a professional or personal capacity.

Sanjog Aul [00:47:05]:

Let’s take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back. And, Jonathan, when we spoke originally about the value, it definitely helped you. You mentioned with your professional brand. Now as a CIO, as someone who is really creating value and you want to communicate with internal and external constituents, did social media adoption help you get the work done better, or just it elevated you as a professional brand? So let’s explore that more when we come back. Listen, please stay tuned. We’ll be right back.

Sanjog Aul [00:49:26]:

Welcome back. So, Jonathan, you definitely have been able to create a good professional and a personal brand because of your efforts in social media. Does it really help you in getting the job done as a CIO?

Dr. Jonathan Reichental [00:49:39]:

It really does. And I want to give you a few specific examples and one or two that are kind of surprising. When you have the privilege of holding a leadership position and particularly in a city such as the City of Palo Alto, you get a lot of attention and there’s a broad stakeholder group who are interested in your work and the work of your department and the work of the city. So, certainly people can go to our website and we have good information there, but they can also follow you through different social media channels, where there’s more of a continuous stream of information. So number one, we have been able to use social media to communicate the richness and clarity of our strategy and specifically the IT strategy of the City of Palo Alto. So whether you’re another agency, you’re another local municipality or you are a vendor or you’re even a prospective employee, you can get a good sense of what we believe and what we’re doing through this channel. To that end, we use social media in the IT department to talk about our needs and specifically around the projects we have and about the people we’re recruiting. We work in Silicon Valley and it’s an amazing place to work, but it’s also the employment situation here is completely different for tech people. We are fighting, we are frontline soldiers on the talent war here in the city. So we’re competing against some of the finest tech companies in the world. And so we have to create a good picture and a strong proposition for prospective employees and we do that through social media. We can directly relate the number of interests we get, the number of candidates with our efforts around social media. So there’s direct correlation there. I think we can also talk about the way in which it benefits the vendor community. So when we are moving forward with a major project and we have a request for proposal that hits the street, there’s going to be the classic group of usual suspects that are going to respond. But we want a broad set of respondents, and social media gives us that vast audience, of the ecosystem of startups and interesting companies and those we don’t even know about, the ability to review that RFP and potentially participate. And we’ve seen a strong correlation between our social media efforts and the size of the RFP respondent pool. So those are 3, to me, strong indicators that as we put the volume up and do social media right around our IT department, we’re seeing clear benefits to us.

Sanjog Aul [00:52:52]:

Claudia, when you look at internal versus external communication, would you have separate policies, separate guidelines or separate things to watch out for?

Claudia Keith [00:53:03]:

If you’re talking about communicating to employees versus communicating to external, you may use different tools. We have different tools at the city that we use to communicate to employees, versus our externally facing Twitter, Facebook, and other social sites. And the messaging may be different. Obviously, if you’re talking to employees, it’s about things that employees are concerned about, which might be benefits or things like that. But the ability to reach employees all at once with messaging is really, I think, a huge benefit, whether that’s on an intranet or we have Chatter at the City of Palo Alto. There’s lots of different ways that companies are trying to reach out to employees because employees are really an extension of your brand, whether you’re at a company, or whether you’re at a city government. We’ve got about 1,000+ employees at the City of Palo Alto. Anyone who’s around the city with that city hat on represents that city’s brand. So I think it’s really important to recognize employees as those brand ambassadors of the persona and the reputation of your organization. So I think engaging with them via social media is important. It’s not always that everyone is as receptive, and that’s understandable. But I think the opportunities for a leader of an organization to do that are really wonderful. For example, at California State University, we did videos, sort of employee talks from our CEO, that were more personal in nature, but that hopefully, brought that message in a human way for people who may never ever see the CEO or the chancellor, in that case, of the organization. And so I think that’s hugely important to be able to create that personal touch for a business leader in an organization that has a large employee base.

Sanjog Aul [00:55:35]:

Jonathan, only 45 seconds. If you had to take three top things which a business leader or IT leader should keep in mind, in order to jump into the social media, I know, and also create the most value, what would those be?

Dr. Jonathan Reichental [00:55:51]:

So I’d kind of think about it in this order. First thing is what are you trying to say? What is the message and the type of style that you want to use in communicating? That’s the first thing. The second thing is who are you trying to reach? Who would value the messaging or who do you believe could benefit from the message you’re trying to get out and that eliciting that two way communication? And then finally, understand that if you’re a leader, it’s highly likely that people want to know what you have to say and what you have to think about a topic. And that includes folks in the external world as we’ve been referring to it and the internal world. So maybe you’ve decided you’re not that interested. But let me tell you, as a CXO, a leader of an organization, there’s a lot of people, including your employees and your customers, who want to hear from you.

Sanjog Aul [00:56:53]:

On behalf of the show and our listeners, I’d really like to thank you both, Jonathan and Claudia, for sharing your thoughts on why business leaders should embrace social media.

Dr. Jonathan Reichental [00:57:03]:

It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Claudia Keith [00:57:05]:

Thank you very much.

Sanjog Aul [00:57:07]:

And listeners, hope you enjoyed it, got some value out of it. Please like us on Facebook, search for CIO Talk Radio, and be sure to follow us on Twitter. Thank you again for listening to CIO Talk Radio. This is Sanjog Aul, your talk show host. Till next week. Take care, and God bless.