Naked Social Media

One of my favorite personal social media success stories took place from 1995 through 1998.

Wait, social media wasn’t around then.

True, but it gets even better: It was accomplished on a network of Wang word processors. That’s the computer you see pictured above. It ran Microsoft DOS, had no mouse, and the screen showed only black or glowing green.

But it had an email system that could tell you when messages you sent had been opened and when they were discarded.

That + Personality + Ingenuity = Perfect recipe for “naked” social media.

The company I was working for—the Tucson Airport Authority—employed approximately 360. Just prior to my joining them, they had started an email-based employee newsletter. (Very forward thinking in 1995. This was before email addresses were standard on business cards.)

We had an existing printed employee newsletter, so there was room to experiment. We did... and we figured out a magical mix:

Our CEO was fairly laid back about what we could do with the newsletter, so we were free to be playful... even poke fun at ourselves in an irreverent way. We’re all in this together. We work hard. Let’s have some fun.

We had an existing system for gathering information in one place. It was my “in box” (the real-world version). All our press releases, board updates, other newsletters, and whatever anyone came across that might be interesting was deposited here.

We focused heavily on our networks... the real world kind. Essentially, our team had their tentacles in pretty much everything the company was doing. This ranged from the top level board-oriented stuff to all the way to the gossipy clerks who worked in hidden offices. Truth is, the gossipy clerks often know more about what is going on. This is true of your organization, too. If you do not get out of your office (and out of “important” meetings) to talk to those who labor in the trenches... you don’t know what’s really going on... and you ain’t doing PR.

I had an agenda. A chip on my shoulder. I was a young pup with a real taste in how the Internet could be used in a business (I had spent some time with AOL). One of the executive managers had specifically told me that the Internet would never be anything but a toy—a waste of time—so we were wasting our time to use it in a business. I was out to prove otherwise. I was going to replace the printed employee newsletter with the email one. But I needed evidence. Numbers.

We could see through they system that we were getting an 80% reader rate. But I needed at least 90% (the number at which we could convince the HR department that everyone possible was being reached).

Then two things happened...

First, a reader we weren’t sure was reading pointed out an amusing typo. We especially wanted to know this reader was paying attention because they fit the “gossipy clerk in the hidden room” category. Before you read that as demeaning, let me translate: Key node on the grapevine. If this person had the right information, we knew that it was being broadcast (and corrected) throughout a large chunk of the organization.

Of all the unexpected... typos and mistakes in the newsletter became a game with our readers. We rewarded our “editors” by including them by name as the source of the correction.

We also solicited for input—any kind of input—from our readers and published it in the next edition. With encouragement and a little wit... we included jokes they shared, notes on something department innovations (one department hand-fabricated a new riding painter to put lines on the runway... pretty cool), even notes on concerts they were performing in (one of the engineers was a gifted tenor). This reached a point where we had a backlog.

See where this is going? It’s no longer a newsletter. It’s a conversation. It’s a community. Social media in ASCI characters alone.

But numbers were showing that we weren’t quite at 90%.

One department was noticeably absent. So I went to talk to them.

Turns out their team worked primarily in the field and didn’t have much use for a computer. But the supervisor thought they’d be interested in the newsletter. She suggested printing a copy and posting it on the inside of the stall of the one restroom they all used. Genius... to the point that they soon asked for a second department computer so they could participate in the community.

95%. No more printed newsletter. Conversation beats paper.

Moral of the story:

Yes, pictures, video, file sharing, profiles, and links can help you tell your story. However, don't confuse the trappings with your mission.

Social media is about connection. Conversation. Community. That's the prize on which you need to keep your eye.

Think "naked" first. How would you find connection if were forced to strip down to green text on a black screen?

Cursor's blinking at you...