CULTURAL FAILURE IN SOCIAL MEDIA

I found some old documents while cleaning out files over the holiday. Mixed among the notes and “atta girl!” slips was a reprimand for ostensibly “disclosing company information” via Twitter way back in 2007 or ’08.

Security key codes? Hires or departures? Grumblings about coworkers? Nope, wasn’t me.

The information disclosed (term I’m using loosely) was along the lines of “Just met with a client to talk about plans for a new SEO project. Woot!” And it was narrowcast to all of my 12 Twitter friends. Not exactly on the same level as the Chrysler faux pas of earlier this year, eh?

Clearly the suits at that company believed employees should be buttoned up, polished. Discrete. Work should be done and not discussed, least of all in public venues.

Was there a disconnect between our two value systems? Not necessarily. The suits and I both believed in doing great web things for clients of the company.

Was there a disconnect in how those values should manifest into employee code of conduct? So it seemed. I thought I was showing my support for the company and team. They thought I was sharing proprietary stuff.

To say the culture shifted after that fracas depends on your point of view. To the corporate communications and executives, the “forward-thinking innovator” brand attributes remained part of the company’s standard language library. To the rank-and-file, that stuff started feeling more like just stuff the company said, but didn’t know how to actually live. A web tech company that cut employees off from social media? Huh?

Deeds and messages weren’t lined up.

It wasn’t until later that I realized the real issue wasn’t my rah-rah tweet. It didn’t lead to a client beat-down. The real issue stemmed from others’ fear of unchartered waters, questions of ownership, priorities that didn’t include transparency, and much more. Social media gave those everyday issues a spotlight and a stage.