What's New, Pussycat?

Maybe it's the hesitant, teasing arrival of Spring. Maybe it's figuring out at my last birthday that I'm halfway to 70 and better get a wriggle on in this thing called life. Whatever it is that's sparked it, I have a burgeoning passion for new things. Experiences, attitudes, people, clothes (I'm a running office joke at the moment because I seem to come back from every lunch hour waving my latest purchase frantically, declaring "THREE pounds!!!").


I like to put it down to the lambs in the field behind our office who greet me most mornings with their optimistic bleating - like a little newness alarm. Whatever it is, I'm on the newness bus and quite enjoying the ride. 


It fits quite nicely with the theme of the latest workshop we've run as part of our Leadership Programme at work - managing change & ambiguity. I'm thinking of changing the name to "Love The Newness". Because newness, by its nature, is change and it's ambiguous and sometimes you can't actually 'manage' it at all. You just have to decide if you're going to jump on board for the ride.


Yesterday, partially in this spirit of newness and partially because the person who invited me seemed like a lot of fun, I attended an Un Conference run by a group of people who go by the moniker Connecting HR. They began as a group on Twitter, expanded into what we HR professionals like to rather pompously call a 'Community of Practice'. Now they meet every so often to discuss the HR & Business topics du jour. Yesterday's topic was "Socially Connected Organisations" - looking at the impact and relevance of Social Media for HR, Organisations and people. I took one of our Account Directors who had (rather foolishly) expressed a desire to "know more about social" with me. When we walked through the doors of The Spring Project in Vauxhall, it was pretty bloody obvious we weren't in Kansas anymore. There was no agenda, no 'keynote speakers', no handouts, no goody bag. I'm quite partial to a goody bag, but I'm equally partial to newness (did I mention?) so, despite feeling a bit like we'd gatecrashed a rave, we threw ourselves in. 


When was the last time you went to a conference where the proceedings were documented not by a bored writer in the corner, but by a bunch of artists on 6 foot high boards (who interjected and heckled and entertained with song as the day unfolded)? When was the last time you went to a conference where you directed the dialogue and defined the content? When was the last time you learned a Jedi Mind trick at a conference? We had all of this yesterday, plus debate and dialogue between some really rather fascinating (and lovely) people. The conversation buzzed, the synapses sparked, the smartphones got a thorough battering...


It turns out that Social Media in organisations is one of those New Things (TM) that people are a bit cautious of. Oh, we mostly love it in our 'private' lives. We'll happily post pictures of our cat doing something amusing *again* to our (very patient) friends and family. But do Social at work? I'm not sure how sure we are about that. Or as Helen (our AD) put it "What if employees don't want to blur their personal and work?". From some of the discussions it seems as if businesses are a bit worried about this social stuff too. How do they control it? What if our employees do something stupid with it and our share price drops? What if they say something we don't like? What if they start a mutiny?


It all boils down to fear and trust, doesn't it? Do you trust your people to do the right thing? Do you trust yourself to hire and develop those kind of people? Do they trust you enough to say what they think? Do you all trust the newness that is Social Media within and without organisations? Or is it all a bit flippin' scary because its new and we can't control it?


The Arab Spring, the Riot Clean Ups, the fact that Twitter now has more users than there are people reading newspapers in the UK, tell us that we can't control it. Like a bunch of excited and confused Keanus and Sandras, the Social Media bus has left the station and is hurtling towards an organisation near you. We need to decide if we want to be on it.