for corporate conferences.  This month I’m attending two client offsites, and our own internal company meeting, which is held in Atlanta every January.  These events are often perceived as expensive, time consuming, and perhaps even disposable.  However, I’ve found that the people who come ready to participate and drive value out of it are successful in doing so, and they walk away with connections they could not have gotten in any other forum. No matter how technologically adept we become, there is something valuable about putting a critical mass of humanity into a confined space for a few days that just can’t be replicated.

We are closing in on the biggest consumer bonanza of the year in the United States.  I continue to be amazed at the resiliance of the American consumer, but I wonder how long it can really last. How long can we continue to ignore the patently obvious – the fact that fast and cheap is not in alignment with core humanitarian values.  While we delight in the great bargain, behind the curtain is a supply chain that is full of challenges.

Our hyper connected world is starting to provide a window in to the realities of cheap labor around the world. Companies should start now to examine the full cost of moving operations into undeveloped markets, including the ethical and human costs. As we’ve seen with Apple and others, transparency is coming, and the sooner corporations get ahead of it the better.

Creating an environment in which workers can quickly react to change (formal and informal) is a challenge. Many organizations still have a ‘Taylor-hangover’, where they are trying to impose piece-work management styles to work environments where unpredictable problematic situations are the norm. Expectations quickly become mismatched in this type of environment.

A nimble work environment challenges leaders to have trust in their workers, to enable them not just through technology but also through dispersed decision making, transparency across organizations, and open and fluid communication. Even more important than a good knowledge repository and detailed communications is an environment where communication between people can thrive.

Check out this word cloud from a team that is looking to identify how they work best together!

Have you ever wondered if your change management projects are really ‘getting the job done’?  Do you see opportunities for using new technologies to take change to the next level?  Are you curious about what the latest thinking is about how to successfully drive change?

Please join us for an ACT hosted webinar discussing how social media and other tools can help drive change internally.  Part marketing, part community building, part culture change – social tools can do many things to help change managers successfully deliver.  Dr. Julie Williamson from the North Highland Company will be talking with Allison Michels from Yammer about how they are helping clients to leverage the power of social to support change efforts.  Their real-world stories from the trenches will help you think about new ways to successfully drive change in your organizations.

Click here to view the webinar: http://tinyurl.com/c824jxx

November 14, 2012, 2:00pm EST

Specifically, you will hear about 5 key elements of sustainable change, four ways technology helps, and three specific types of technology that vastly improve change management efforts.  Join us as we talk about how to ‘change the way we change’ through social media.

We look forward to hosting you on our ConferenceCast Social platform allowing you to participate in the conversation utilizing social media such as Yammer, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Julie Williamson, PhD  Vice President at The North Highland Company

Dr. Julie Williamson is a leading voice in change management and organizational design. Her research in organizational communication includes work on how collaboration happens within social media communities and through technology enablement. As a Vice President with The North Highland Company, Julie leads change management and organizational development programs for companies around the world. Her deep expertise in the communications industry (including mobile, cable, and telco) combined with her academic grounding in social science and specifically organizational communication combine to provide her with an ideal perspective from which to consider how conferencing and collaboration tools can support effective change.  Julie publishes and speaks on the effect of social media on communities, change management, organizational design, and the integration of technology and strategy. Julie has a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, and an MBA from the University of Denver. She can be reached at julie.williamson@northhighland.com.

Allison Michels, Manager of Learning and Development for Customer Education Services at Yammer.

Allison delivers education programs to customers and engages in the people side of change. She loves seeing new Yammer users’ light bulbs go off when they discover new ways to use Yammer. Her focus is on training and coaching the C-suite. Prior to Yammer, Allison was an IT Training Analyst at First Solar, a premier provider of fully integrated solar solutions. Allison holds a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Toledo and is currently pursuing her Masters of Education, Technology and Leadership at George Washington University. Follow her at @anicole87.

About ACT Conferencing

ACT Conferencing is a global provider of audio, web and video collaboration solutions. For more than 20 years, the world’s largest enterprises and communication providers have depended on our consultation and service delivery to increase revenues, improve productivity, reach new markets, and outperform their competition.  ACT creates a globally consistent, but culturally localized, unified communications experience. We design solutions which integrate seamlessly into diverse operating environments, and we apply service assurance controls in order to maintain the superior levels of quality and responsiveness required by multinational clients.  ACT’s unique capabilities are preferred by clients who value solutions that are easier to use, less costly to deploy, and enable teams to focus and achieve results faster.

The election is coming to a close in the next week, and as we look back at the debates, this infographic, from North Highland, does a great job of highlighting some of the ways in which new technology infrastructure and platforms have shaped the conversation.

A recent Fast Company article noted that ““You simply can’t afford to be sentimental about the past. Future-focus is an imperative for businesses: Trying to replicate what worked yesterday only leaves you vulnerable.”

It has never been more true that ‘what got you here won’t likely get you there’.  Outside of hard work and creative thinking, whatever you did ten years ago isn’t likely to give you the same results in the next ten years.

Fear of deconstructing and reinventing a historically successful business model is holding so many companies (and people) back today. For me, it feels like pent up innovation when I go in and talk with clients about growing their business – after years of focusing entirely on the cost side of the margin equation, they literally don’t know how to think of their business in any other way as a collective.  What’s worse, individuals lower in the organization who might have great ideas get lost in the maze of governance, idea funnels, and gating processes, and the executive suite is too focused on the day to day to really envision something dramatic.

Take a good look around. Is your work – meaning what you personally do – becoming irrelevant (be honest with yourself, you don’t have to tell anyone else)? What about your company’s products and services?  If they haven’t changed in the last 10 years, there’s a good chance they are.

According to one report, less than 5% of CEOs are participating on a social platform on behalf of their brands. Some are online but under aliases as they engage in personal discussions, but keep professional interactions out of the mix. And then there’s the fact that they just don’t fit the demographic. They tend to be older, male, and conservative – not exactly a Pinterest posterchild.

I believe part of the challenge in getting executives online is distinguishing between personal and professional engagement online. Executives who neglect social on behalf of their brands because they don’t understand how to manage this split risk missing out on a rich and rewarding experience for their customers. It is important to be clear about when you are speaking on behalf of your brand, and when you are making a personal comment. In the case of executive leaders, if their names are associated with the brands, delineation becomes more challenging but not impossible.  An account associated with your brand is absolutely held to a different standard than an account from which you can feel free to let your thoughts fly.  Common sense and a dose of training can go a long way in this regard.

Rupert Murdoch recently made news with his Twitter interaction with a customer in Kentucky who was missing his home delivery (see the story). Whether this was ‘really’ Rupert or a person assigned to the account doesn’t really matter – the customer got a personalized and fast reply and resolution that had a touch to it that couldn’t be replicated in a call to a call center, an e-mail sent into a pit of customer despair, or even worse a form filled out on the so called ‘customer service page’ on the website.

The Wall Street Journal recently had a great article about executives online – it is nice to see that Murdoch (who’s company owns the WSJ) is testing the waters himself.

I talked with a client the other day who commented to me that her company’s ‘best product is a good crisis’ – something they serve up internally and to clients on a regular basis. Best of all ‘it’s free!’ she explained.  They are lucky they have a product with high switching costs, but that will only sustain them for so long – their percentage of churn at the end of a contract is increasing at an alarming rate.

Clients don’t want you to be a hero and exceed their expectations by your amazing response to crisis. They want reliable, dependable, wonderful service and products that meet their needs and expectations and don’t create anxiety and tension where it isn’t needed.  Think about how much time your company spends responding to crisis versus just doing things right.  Do you have ‘crisis addiction’?  Might be time for an intervention….  sound the alarm if that’s what you are good at doing!

Eleanor Roosevelt encouraged us all to do something every day that scares us. She was one of the more unusual first ladies, someone who followed her own path, and I suspect took her own advice.  It is timeless in many ways. It is a good reminder – have you done anything recently that scares you? Are you sitting in a job you’ve been doing for 10+ years, and where you are comfortable but slightly bored? Is there anything exciting happening for you day in and day out? If not, you might want to reconsider where you are, and think about doing something that scares you.

George Bush reminded us that “Just because you’re an old guy, you don’t have to sit around drooling in the corner,” he said. “Get out and do something. Get out and enjoy life.” Double check yourself.  Are you playing the old guy sitting in the corner, far before your time?  Note to self: your chronological age is not relevant in this case.

George Bush skydives on his 85th birthday.