Ted Robbins, Textiles and 78rpms. My week of social media.

Posted on March 29, 2013 by whatsthepont

This week I ended up on BBC Radio Lancashire talking about textiles, Lancashire Folk and an old 78rpm record. I have absolutely no connection with Lancashire and the textile industry (as far as I know) so this was a bit of a surprise.

The only link was a 1950’s 78rpm record called ‘Lancashire Speaks’ which I wrote a blog post about. Social media intervened and this is how I ended up on the radio talking to Ted Robbins and Andrew Schofield from the North West Sound Archive.

Saturday 16^th March – I find the ‘Lancashire Speaks’ record amongst the collection that belonged to my wife’s Grandparents. I do some research on Cyril Lord who issued the record but draw a blank.
Sunday 17^th March – decide to write a blog post about how the record is an interesting early example of getting local people’s voices heard by remote decision makers. I also offered the record to a good home as an example of social history.
Monday & Tuesday – conversations on my twitter account with people commenting on the blog post and suggestions of who might be interested in the recording. The North West Sound Archive got mentioned three times so I send them an email.
Wednesday & Thursday – email and telephone conversations follow with Andrew Schofield from the North West Sound Archive. The record isn’t something Andrew is aware and they would be interested in a copy. At this point neither of us has listened to the recording.
Weekend of 23rd & 24^th March – I source suitable material to package this now precious record and send it to the NW Sound Archive at Clitheroe.
Tuesday 26^th March – Phone call from Andrew, he’s received the recording safely and it works. Two minutes of Lancashire Folk speaking about the textile industry, directed at Members of the Houses of Parliament. A bit of ‘hiss’, but what do you expect for a 60-year-old recording.
Wednesday 27^th March – emails and phone calls. Would I be prepared to talk on BBC Radio Lancashire about the recording? Gary Scott had picked it up via my blog post and they would like to talk to me. Now who is going to turn down an offer like that? Not me!
Thursday 28^th March – I get to speak with Ted Robbins and Andrew and listen to the recording for the first time. You can have a listen to the whole interview here (skip to 47-58mins). Hopefully I will have the digital recording of the Lancashire Textile Workers soon which I will add here.

One of the Tweets suggesting I contact the North West Sound Archive. People were very helpful.

So what happens next?

In Lancashire – hopefully people get in touch with the Ted Robbins show or the NW Sound Archive with some more information and we can fill in a few more of the gaps in information.

In South Wales – The only connection we think we have with the record in my Wife’s Grandfather, George William Ridgwell, who was in the Metropolitan Police (1921-1962) and the Inspector at the Houses of Parliament during the 1950’s. We think that he may have acquired the record during this time. It would be interesting to know.

Has social media helped in solving this mystery?

Thinking about the alternatives I probably wouldn’t have bothered doing anything other than putting the record back in the box. With relative ease I wrote a blog post which ended up with an interview with the radio station at the heart of Lancashire. I don’t think alternative methods would have achieved such wide coverage. Here are some numbers (imagine what we could have achieved if I was really good at this sort of thing):

My original ‘Lancashire Speaks’ blog post was viewed almost 200 times,
Through twitter links to the post have been shared 35 times
BBC Radio Lancashire has over 200 thousand listeners a week

So, what’s the PONT?

Blogging and social media have helped me to share a bit of social history which otherwise might have remained ‘lost’ in a box.
It might help piece a few more bits of the jigsaw together, in Lancashire and some family history back here in South Wales.
Is been great fun. I’ve spoken with Ted Robbins, Andrew Schofield and created a bit of excitement in work and with the family and friends.

One final thing. Cyril Lord was an interesting character. I’d love to know if he really did have a cameo appearance in a Batman episode as the ‘Carpet King’.

Photo Source: Ted Robbins from BBC Radio Lancashire. http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/robbins

Heron Corn Mill were very helpful.

Newsletter vrs Podcast, Who Wins? Remember, a paper newsletter can also keep you warm.

Posted on December 16, 2012 by whatsthepont

My father in law once told me about how managed the mountains of mail that landed on his desk as the Head of a large High School. One of his routines was to drop all of the newsletters neatly into a box with the intention of reading them at the end of term. Mostly they ended up on the bonfire, unread. This was pre recycling days but I don’t think much has changed.

This week I encountered several people who enthusiastically described how they were going to ‘change the world’ by sending newsletters (I’m exaggerating a bit, not like me I know). The point is that their passion for the cause, energy and commitment were not in doubt. Sadly though I felt their enthusiasm it was a bit unrealistic and miss-directed. Haven’t we been down the well trodden ‘let’s send out a newsletter and change the world’ path many times before? Just to illustrate here are a few learning points from the week.

There are apps to automatically remove newsletters. I know I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but there are. Unroll.me is an app that does this under the banner ‘End Email Overload’. Here is a description of how Sarah Kessler reduced 271 subscriptions to 17 and packaged had them into a single email using unroll.me

The underlying motivation seems to be that most newsletter subscriptions are a nuisance that should be removed from your email inbox. Something newsletter editors might want to think about?

Prevention is better than cure. There are plenty of people advocating the ‘just say no’ approach. If you search online for information on how to deal with email overload it’s not long before you encounter advice telling you not to sign up for email newsletters in the first place and un-subscribe from any you currently receive.

The emailcharter.org has got some very helpful advice on how to prevent email overload, focused upon individuals taking responsibility for their actions. When it comes to newsletters I particularly like their ‘Join Our Mailing List’ button. This has a note next to it saying “Don’t Click This! “ Go and click it and see what happens

Newsletters seem to have acquired the status of ‘problem’. Something that clogs up your inbox which you’ll never ever read.

Paper newsletters don’t get treated any better. Saturday morning at home is time to sort through the week’s post. This week generated six newsletters that went directly from package to recycling bin without passing through the brain. OK, there were some things like the ‘Greyhound Rescue Shelter News’, but you get the point.

The carefully crafted design, eloquently written content and cost of printing don’t count for much if the newsletter closely follows the junk mail into the recycling bin (I think I might actually take more in if I were glancing at them before throwing them onto the bonfire…..?).

Good News, there is another way…….Podcasts. While I was engaged in my Saturday morning chores I had a podcast playing. This was the disruptive social care podcast from Shirley Ayres and Stuart Arnott. Listening to Shirley, Stuart and their guests is one my most useful learning experiences (it’s like Radio 4, but better….).

This podcast is in a completely different league to newsletters and as it happens the guest this week picked up on the point. Richard Humphries, Senior Research Fellow at The Kings Fund made a comment along the lines of…. ‘the social care sector produces lots of outputs, reports, papers etc which he struggles to keep up with. However, he always finds time to listen to the podcast which provides a fresh perspective’ I think that pretty much says it all.

Do have a listen to the disruptive social care podcast for yourself, it’s a great example of how to share knowledge. Even if social care isn’t your main area of interest, it’s surprising what you can learn.

So, what’s the PONT?

Knowledge exchange is a complicated area where multiple channels of communication are possible. Knowing what works for your target audience is essential.
The trusty old newsletters (paper or digital) do get treated a bit like spam or junk mail. Something editors need to recognise.
Podcasts offer a fresh perspective which is very engaging for many people. The time will come when they are the ‘standard approach’ that the newsletter used to be.

Opportunity in Adversity. Glass Half Full Thinking at Arriva Trains Wales (@ArrivaTW)

Posted on September 9, 2012 by whatsthepont

Here’s quick follow up to the post about Arriva Trains Wales and their journey to improved customer service.

Last week saw another blip on the tracks. On Tuesday morning damaged signaling cable caused significant disruption. I know because I was due to meet people who were stuck at Newport (and I picked it up through Twitter).

It was interesting to observe that those people making use of Twitter (following the various train companies and Twitter hash tags #) were far better informed (and less stressed) than those who weren’t, but that’s another story……

What has grabbed my attention is the request ATW put out on Twitter for feedback on how communication worked during the disruption. I think this approach is interesting in a number of ways. My observations:

You have been horribly delayed in your journey (not actually ATW’s fault), but they have tried their best to communicate with you while it was happening;
They have been honest and open about the limitations of their current communication methods (no live tweeting on the disruption, see picture below);
But they do care about how they communicate with you, so they are asking how things worked on Tuesday so that they can make things better;
Sending this ‘how can we get better’ message takes some the heat out of the situation (in my opinion);
Gathering feedback in a structured manner while the issue is still live should capture information that is ‘fresh in the mind’, so it’s probably more accurate;
In my view, this is better than something six months down the track when a generic customer service questionnaire asks a potentially vague question about ‘communication during disruption’; and.
How good is your memory of the communication aspects of the event likely to be in 2 weeks time, let alone 6 months? This (almost) real-time feedback has got to be more useful.

I really like what ATW are trying to do here. It’s a good attempt at trying to engage with service users through Twitter as part of the improvement journey. Even though it was a difficult situation they have seen an opportunity to try and make things better. Real ‘glass half full’ thinking, nice one ATW.

I wonder if any other public service providers might have a go at something like this?

So, what’s the PONT?

During disruption, service users really appreciate knowing what’s going on. Twitter offers an opportunity to do that.
Being open and honest about your limitations and asking for information on ‘how do we improve’ is a good way of engaging service users.
Gathering feedback while the situation is still ‘fresh in the mind’ should provide information which is more accurate than a survey months later.

Open and honest communication with @_LaurenCook_. Followed by a few screen shots of the survey. A wide range of communication channels available. I count 12!

Doing something that scares me ……. Canton Social Media Surgery

Posted on July 11, 2012 by whatsthepont

A while back I was having banjo lessons. The banjo teacher couldn’t actually play the banjo. He was a fantastic guitar teacher, but had zero experience of banjos. He would joyfully rationalise this situation by assuring me (after he’d taken my £20) with soothing words, “don’t worry my son; as long as I stay one step ahead of you we’ll be just fine….”

Things felt a bit like this last week when I helped out at the Canton Social Media Surgery, with me staying just about one step ahead.

Having spent a while blogging, using twitter and other bits of social media I felt like I had enough experience to do my bit and help other people. I was slightly anxious, being very much in the territory of that Eleanor Roosevelt quote of “do one thing every day that scares you”. The other side of this was forcing myself to become more competent by trying to teach what I knew, a bit of a test……….. well I wasn’t disappointed.

Juliette and Nicky did a good job of preparing me. Plenty of pre-surgery reading, assuring me I’d be fine and giving me the grand title of ‘surgeon’. I was then introduced to my ‘patient’ a lovely lady. As I recall this is how it played out:

Lady: “I’m not that good with technology”
My thoughts: Great I’m on safe ground here…..
Lady: “I’m interested in WordPress, but I don’t know very much”
My thoughts: Excellent, I’m bound to dazzle you with my knowledge…..
Lady: “I have been on holidays, the campsite had WIFI so I’ve been looking at WordPress”
My thoughts: okaaay……..this could be interesting……..
Lady: “I’ve done some WordPress research….” and she produced an A4 notebook containing what looked like about 20 pages of neatly written notes
My thoughts: Arrgghhh…….. Where’s the fire escape!

Fortunately we had a chat about Twitter while I gathered my senses and then we moved onto WordPress. In the end everything went very well. I found out that I do actually know a few things, and learnt quite a lot as well. Admittedly some of the learning came later that evening when I got home and clicked a few WordPress things (not that anyone would notice).

This process of learning was a big thing for me was. Recently I heard Physics Teacher Alessio Bernadelli talk about how first year sixth form students (year 12) had learned about photo electricity by posting blogs to be reviewed by year 6 students. The act of explaining what they knew to others helped their personal understanding. This is nicely summed up in a post from another teacher, Lucy Bunce in her blog where she quotes from the book Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams…….”What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your mind”

My experience at Canton Social Media Surgery was about combining three things:

really understanding what I know by explaining it to someone else;
staying just one step ahead; and
learning from the person you are teaching.

Overall this made for a very rewarding experience. Thanks to my ‘patients’ who were very tolerant and to Juliette and Nicky for letting me take part, hopefully I’ll get invited back next time.

So, what’s the PONT?

As Dirk Gently says, if you really want to understand something, explain it to someone else.
It’s amazing what you learn from the people you are supposedly teaching, just be sure you open yourself up, look and listen.
In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, “do one thing every day that scares you”. It worked for me.

Picture source: This isn’t my banjo teacher. It’s Don Wayne Reno a fantastic bluegrass banjo player with the band Hayseed Dixie (who I happen to quite like).

Getting beyond the 1% rule – Intrinsic motivation and online communities

Posted on June 26, 2012 by whatsthepont

Recently I posted about the rule of 1% for online participation and why I think it still applies in many of the online communities I frequent. This is a ‘note to self’ and a plea to a few people I know with the ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy for online knowledge sharing. I admire the commitment, but it is worth thinking about how you move beyond 1% participation. That’s got to be good for the business case and the return on investment figures. It also avoids the sad faces when things get closed down after 12 months because not many people turned up and hardly anyone stuck around.

There are two really good sources of information I’ve found on this, both on the sponge.com website. Sponge is a service that provides a platform for online Q&A communities. It also has a very helpful blog that talks about engagement and participation in online communities. Given what they do, I think they are in a good position to provide this view.

The first source to mention is 6 reasons why we participate in online communities. These are all things many of us will recognise, but maybe not think about when we set up our online communities. Check out the post for further explanation and links to research behind each of the reasons why people participate:

Anticipated Reciprocity
Reputation
Sense of Efficacy
Altruism
Sense of Belonging
Emotional Connection

The second post is about motivation in online community participation. The standout message for me is summarised by the graphic they use. Basically, participation will peak early on for reasons to do with newness and then decline. Whether or not that decline becomes permanent or grows and stabilises depends upon the degree of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation within the community. I’ve seen this happen, in both online and offline communities. Looking at this from a 1% rule of participation perspective, the lower line in this graphic could represent the 1% of people actively participating to keep the community alive.

The extrinsic motivation factors mentioned in the post are things like rewards and quizzes, great for getting things started. When it gets down to intrinsic motivation, the post identifies three things; learning, self-expression and fun. Look at the explanation in the sponge post, but from my own perspective here’s an observation on how this might apply to the world I know:

Learning. This is great, the primary reason why online knowledge sharing communities get established. It’s just a case of making sure that people can learn as well as share. This might require someone actively posting material for others to learn from and respond to. What we need to avoid is this just being activity by the eager 1%.
Self Expression. This sort of answers the point above. If people are able to express themselves through posting comments and their own material we could get a virtuous circle developing. The big barrier is still however the confidence to post material. Something I’ve talked about before, but things like micro-participation and private discussion groups will help to build confidence and more significantly, trust.
Fun. This is a tricky one. There is a bit of an ‘anti fun’ movement in parts of the world I know. Regardless of that, I think we should persevere. I’m open to suggestions on how to inject some fun into an online community on for example….. refuse collection vehicle maintenance…….. there must be a way.

Thankfully there are some shining lights I know of. Here is a link to a post by Helen Reynolds about an online community that’s doing very well, Monmouthshire Foster Carers. They seem to have the intrinsic motivation factors I’ve been talking about which is great.

So, what’s the PONT?

Anticipate a significant drop in participation during the early stages of and online community (I’ve seen it take some people by surprise).
Online communities need careful thought in their design of you want people to participate and the community to grow and be sustainable.
Think carefully about how you support the intrinsic motivation around: learning, self-expression and fun (any pointers on fun please let me know). How do you get better than 1% participation?

Picture source: Graph sponge.com website

NeverSeconds, School Dinners, Social Media and some learning for Public Service

Posted on June 16, 2012 by whatsthepont

Single tweet, massive impact.

Situation.

30th April 2012 a 9 year old school pupil starts the NeverSeconds blog as a writing project with her dad.
Martha writes about what she gets for school lunch and takes photographs.
This is done with the approval of the school.
The blog also acts as a link to raising money for a school meals charity.
Blog gets some good attention, kids from other places send pictures of their own school meals and they are posted.
June 2012, negative press articles attract the attention of those responsible for providing the meals, the Local Council.
Thursday 14th June Martha is told to stop taking photographs of school dinners by the Council.
Martha publishes this on the blog in a ‘Goodbye’ message.
The world of social media, twitter in particular, erupts.

Social Media Impact

A very prominent school meals campaigner (Jamie Oliver) sends a message of support and encourages his 2.3 million followers to retweet it.
Twitter gets very busy with people talking about ‘#neverseconds’.
The story is picked up by television, radio and newspapers.
Politicians become involved, some via twitter.
Considerable pressure is put on the Local Council.
Friday 15th June the Council reverses the ban and Martha is allowed to use photographs of the school meals in NeverSeconds.
This all happens within a 24 hour timeframe.
……and the world of social media erupts even further.

A few numbers

Never Seconds blog had received in excess of 4,500,000 page view by 11am on Saturday 16th June (still climbing).
The page view counter on Saturday morning was flicking over at rate too fast to count. It was about 200 views per minute (12,000 / hour) when it had slowed down a bit.
The ‘#neverseconds’ hash tag attracted thousands of tweets.
The donations to the school meals charity have reached over £45,000, the fastest rate of donations they have experienced; and it’s still going on.
There are 2 more weeks until the end of term, plenty of time for more school dinner blog posts.

Some thoughts

The council has received a massive amount of publicity in a very short space of time. Most of it negative, using phrases like ‘bully’. It’s going to be an interesting day back at work on Monday.
Will this improve the quality of school meals? Particularly once social media has gone away? Who knows, but the fear of a return to this level of exposure might be a big motivation.
What happens next for Never Seconds and Martha?

So what’s the PONT?

Censorship is a risky activity in the world of social media. It backfired hugely for this council (even if they do claim good reasons).
The speed and scale of social media will cause problems for most organisations. Most public services aren’t equipped for this sort of 24/7 media pressure.
As an example of ‘citizen voice’ from within a group of generally ‘quiet’ people (primary school kids), this is a pretty loud and high impact. As part the ‘digital natives’ entering wider society and the world of work, there is an interesting future ahead for public services.

Interesting Links: Council Statement. http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/node/38630

Infographic: http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1105/lunch/flat.html Do students eat like prisoners? Well worth looking at.

Also have a look at the Streisand effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect. An attempt to hide or remove a piece of information online has the unintended consequence of publicising the information more widely.

If Carlsberg did Physics Teachers…. they would make Alessio Bernardelli.

Posted on June 14, 2012 by whatsthepont

I am totally inspired at the moment. Of all things it’s about physics, education and blogging, all thanks to Alessio Bernardelli.

Last night Alessio spoke at a WordPress Users Wales meeting about his blog and how he’s been using blogging in education. Here is his blog, please go and visit you won’t be disappointed (check out The Hidden Particles of Fishy Tank, brilliant).

Just to give you a taste of why I found it so inspirational, here’s an example of the sort of thing he does.

Last year he was teaching physics to Year 12 students (16/17 year olds). The subject area was photoelectricity and energy levels. As a past A Level physics student it rings distant bells but I don’t recall it being particularly exciting….. How wrong could I be?

What Alessio got the pupils to do, was write an ‘Ode to Photoelectricity’, a poem. Not what we did back in the day, but something that certainly gets you thinking, and requires considerably more effort than a ‘cut and paste’ from Wikipedia. So far so good. Next, the poems are posted as blogs, and the homework ‘marked’ (opened up for comments). This is great, everyone gets to see what everyone else is doing, and you get some helpful feedback. This is more than just learning physics; it’s acquiring the ‘giving and receiving feedback’ skill that just about every workplace I’ve experienced values greatly.

What happens next is even better. The assignment was about energy levels and photon emissions. This would also be blogged and then reviewed by the Year 6 (10/11 year old) kids in the local primary school. This is a real challenge in terms of understanding the science, and also the ability to communicate what you understand (great life skills again).

The best way to see the impact of this is to view the outputs via Alessio’s post on collaboration cross phase through blogging. Have a look at this very scientific presentation from some of the pupils. Standard power point stuff; similar to what many of us get served daily at work.

The solitary response from Year 6 pupils says it all.

As a contrast here is a link to another piece of homework, which makes full use of colour and animation to communicate the message. The comments speak for themselves, here’s a selection.

Interestingly, today I was at a conference where the message was being given that public service organisations in Wales need to develop a culture of accepting challenge and feedback. Perhaps Alessio is already developing these people for the future by teaching them physics in a fun and inspiring was. He certainly inspired me, thanks Alessio.

So, what’s the PONT?

Inspiring teachers really do make a difference.
Having fun at what you do is a key component to learning and engagement.
Blogging is much more than just broadcasting your views. Looking for, accepting and giving feedback is a skill lots of people (I know) could usefully develop.

The Rule of 1% is Dead….. well not quite round these parts.

Posted on May 17, 2012 by whatsthepont

After wondering in previous posts about how many people actually participate in online communities of practice, my son helpfully pointed me in the direction of the 1% rule of Internet culture. Fantastic, this felt like the world of 90% lurkers I recognise. Then the BBC goes and burst my bubble. In their online spring briefing they pronounce that participation rates in online activities are much higher, more like 77%. I’m confused; almost 8 out of 10 people actively participating? This doesn’t feel like the world I inhabit.

The 1% rule or the 90–9–1 principle is a hypothesis that more people will lurk in a virtual community than will participate. It’s been around since the mid 2000’s and has been likened to the 80/20 rule (Pareto principle), where 20% of a group will deliver 80% of the activity.

For online communities the 1% rule states:

1% of people will actually create content;
9% of people edit, modify or comment on that content; and
90% of people will view the content without contributing.

Based upon my experience this feels about right and seems to be a very plausible hypothesis. It could also apply to some of the offline communities I’ve experienced.

The BBC Internet Blog article presents the findings of a survey of over 7500 adult internet users that was gathered over an 18 month period. One of the key points author Holly Goodier makes is, “digital participation now is best characterised through the lens of choice. These are the decisions we take about whether, when, with whom and around what, we will participate. Because participation is now much more about who we are, than what we have, or our digital skill.” What I took from the article was that improvements in ‘ease of participation’ mean that there are no longer the technical barriers like there used to be. The other thing it says to me is, the content has to be good – something you want to / are motivated to engage and participate (no surprises there).

The BBC findings have generated a bit of debate. In this article by Bobbie Johnson on GIGAOM he argues that the BBC are comparing ‘apples with oranges’ to arrive at the 77% participation figure. In reality people (like me and many I know) use different parts of the internet for different things and the rule of 1% still applies when you look at things broadly. Not everyone agrees with him though and someone has commented, “The BBC are never wrong and you’re clearly are…”. Oh dear, might be a lesson here…… be careful about criticising the BBC.

Coming back to my world of online communities and why I think the rule of 1% still applies:

Professional knowledge sharing in an online community of practice is quite a bit different to a discussion thread about what a Radio 1 DJ is saying. When your professional reputation is on public display, most people I know will stay hidden with the 90% lurkers;
Micro-participation is still developing in this world, it’s not quite the ‘done thing’ to ‘like’ a case study about social services or refuse vehicle maintenance; and
There is still a lack of confidence to participate, and some organisations still don’t encourage it. Perhaps courses like social media for the terrified delivered by digitalandpeople.co.uk, which is aimed at civil servants, will help to increase the 1% and reduce the lurkers

So what’s the PONT?

The rule of 1% is very useful when thinking about how many people will actually participate in an online community of practice.
Content is king. If what is being said is interesting and highly relevant, you may well get higher participation rates (a bit like non virtual communities).
In the world of professional knowledge sharing lots of people still need to build their confidence before they will participate.

Flipchart foraging and why its worth trying the Draw Something app

Posted on May 6, 2012 by whatsthepont

One of my pastimes is checking out the abandoned flipcharts I find in the variety of offices and meeting rooms I get to frequent. It’s quite a revealing pastime (possibly about me unfortunately). Occasionally you do stumble across sensitive material, obviously this goes straight in the confidential waste bin, or back into the hands of the originator. However, it’s the other material on flipcharts that fascinates me. I reckon you can get a useful insight into an organisation from the debris gets left behind on the flipcharts. The more frantic the scribbles, the more I like it. Line & box diagrams, mind maps, dodgy graphs, stick people and bullet points all feature. Whatever form it takes it’s all a great informal record of organisational life. The real story of what’s going on from the hands of the people who know the place best.

This helpfully gives me an opportunity to talk about some recent experiences where a drawing has helped focus a discussion.

Twice recently I’ve sat in meetings, slightly bored and detached from the action (a familiar situation for many I suspect). What this allowed was the opportunity for a bit of observation and testing a theory of mine about the impact of flipchart drawings.

Meeting 1. Business Process Review. Nine people sat around a table discussing a document management process. It felt like something from a Dilbert cartoon. The alpha males and females (3 people) were vying for superiority, while two others were doing the best they could to get heard. The rest were in various stages of disengagement. Plenty of arm waving and use of technical language to demonstrate ‘one’s own cleverness’ was going on. What looked obvious to me was that there were at least two versions of the truth being spoken about, and a contractor (supposed to be delivering the solution) looking confused, frustrated and increasingly desperate.

Eventually some bright spark suggested the contractor draw the process on a flipchart. Bingo! Suddenly everyone was talking about the same thing and rapid progress was achieved. It took 40 minutes to get to this point and 10 minutes to agree some action.

Meeting 2. Comparing Supplier Costs. Thinking about it now, this was a completely daft situation. A group of 7 people were trying to compare two sets of figures. Most people had the first set of figures. Only one person had a copy of the second, and had only shared them verbally. The discussion was passionate and detailed, with strongly held views about the figures, but completely pointless.

Eventually someone wrote down the figures on a flipchart. It immediately became obvious where the issues where. This was incredibly not in the place where people had been expressing strongly held views! The group then got around to concentrating on the most important issues and developing options. Again, this one took about 40 minutes (of wasted time) before someone wrote on the flipchart and focused the discussion.

A few things I learnt from observing these events:

Some people love to talk and express an opinion, no matter how irrelevant;
A lack of a clear objective or point of focus allows the misguided (or even the meeting saboteurs I previously mentioned) to flourish;
People quickly disengage in these situations; and
A few ‘scribbles’ on a flipchart puts it all back on track.

If this is what can be achieved with a few amateur scribbles, imagine what can be achieved through expertly drawn graphics? Have a look at an earlier post about graphic facilitation and the fantastic material organisations like Delta7 generate by working with the people in organisations.

So, what’s the PONT?

Focusing a discussion or a meeting by putting something down on paper can (usually does) help everyone understand and ‘speak the same language’.
Using drawings, graphics or other illustrations can really help, especially with complicated processes, ideas or difficult situations.
Next time you are in a meeting going nowhere, have a go yourself, start drawing and see what happens.

If you are wondering, here is the connection with Draw Something. If you are slightly nervous about putting something on paper, download the Draw Something app and start drawing. Practice makes perfect … possibly. I wonder if I can fit Elvis into a work context…….?

Linked posts: http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/the-staff-dont-understand-quick-draw-them-a-picture-or-something/

@engagementindex on Twitter, @LondonMidland Trains customer service is fantastic …. Official!

Posted on April 5, 2012 by whatsthepont

Yesterday London Midland Trains tweeted that they were proud to have retained the top spot on the @engagementindex on Twitter. I’ve posted previously about how London Midland Trains use Twitter and how they provided real time customer support trying to cross London during a time of rail disruption.

This tweet got me intrigued, so I had to take a look, and it led me to the trains report on the Engagement Index Engagement Index website.

Here is the graphic which is clear and easy to understand. Basically it is the ratio of direct tweets to an organisation that they have responded to, and those they have ignored. London Midland scores very highly as it responds to a high number of the tweets sent directly to them. The contrast is the train company at the bottom end that received 79 direct tweets and ignored them all, Arriva Trains Wales, oh dear.

During March 2012 London Midland Trains received 1022 direct tweets; they responded to 767 and ignored 255. That might seem a high rate, but having seen the London Midland twitter stream when things are busy, there is a lot of traffic, and you could forgive them for not responding to some of the more ‘jaunty’ tweets (there is an interesting post on the Engagement Index blog about how to deal with tweets that contain swearing). The only other organisation that seems to come close to the London Midland performance (apart from Greater Anglia Trains) is Halifax in the banking report

What I like about the Engagement Index approach (apart from it being free) is the fact that it is beautifully straightforward. I can’t do any better than to quote straight from their website:

Overview

The Engagement Index is a score on how well or badly a business is replying to messages aimed at them. It is a measure of their customer service performance on Twitter. More and more consumers / customers are turning to social media and in particular Twitter to engage, ask, complain to brands and businesses. Engagement Index measures how well or badly those companies are at replying to those messages.

What’s the aim?

To develop a simple scoring system with the aim of raising the customer service bar particularly in the UK. Sadly customer care in the UK to my mind is in the most part still very poor. Twitter is a game changer for businesses. Through Engagement Index I want businesses to be able to track themselves so that they can see how they are performing, see if the resources they have allocated are sufficient and aimed in the right places and so on.

A couple of posts from John Dell’Armi give a good perspective on why organisations need to treat social media and particularly Twitter like any other form of customer feedback. This one talks about having nothing to fear (if you do the right thing) and another one about train companies of all things, “if you are on twitter, you need to be on twitter”.

So what’s the PONT?

Customer (service user) engagement on Twitter is just like any other form of engagement, so don’t ignore it.
The Engagement Index is a powerful tool for measuring engagement. It also allows benchmarking between and across sectors, and its free!
Public services could a useful area for the Engagement Index to focus its attention next.

Picture Source: http://www.engagementindex.co.uk/reports?sector=trains

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