Leveraging Social Media Channels – Lessons Learned in 8 hours

Sure, you’ve got a Social Media strategy. You’ve even got several channels under your Social Media strategy. But how well do you know the effectiveness of each channel? How long is it taking you to pilot, test, and determine the effective of each channel? What if you were able to determine the effectiveness of a marketing strategy before you invested significant time and effort?

Every Social Media effort at PAKRA must have a defined purpose and measurable outcomes before it’s launched. This allows us to implement a program, measure, and adjust. With many strategies, it’s possible to collect data and measure the potential impact before you’ve even made the decision to deploy the program.

Let’s look at LinkedIn as an example. PAKRA actively uses LinkedIn as a channel for both lead generation and building brand awareness. Recently, we explored the idea of using LinkedIn discussion groups to increase our lead generation efforts and better enable brand awareness on our core product offerings – business process gaming simulations and software-as-a-service (SaaS).

We set out to prove or disprove this hypothesis:

We can use LinkedIn groups to engage in discussions that generate marketing and sales leads, increase brand awareness, and enable us to be viewed as an industry expert and trusted resource for information.

So, where did we start? Did we assign resources to spend 2 – 3 hours a day managing the discussion groups? Did we launch a 30-day pilot to initiate industry relevant discussions? Did we spend weeks gathering data and measuring results?

None of the above!

Before we spent time and resources launching this strategy – we observed, we collected data, and we analyzed what we found. Over the course of 2 days and a total of 8 hours, we collected data from over from over 40 different industry specific groups and from 150 different discussion posts (that contained at least 3 comments per post).

Next, we set out to gather data that would answer the question:

“Is there a right way or wrong way to message in LinkedIn groups that will lead to group members responding more often and engaging in discussions?”

To answer this question, we did the following:

1. Tracked the number of user responses to each discussion post

2. Scored the effectiveness (highly effective, somewhat effective, not effective) of each discussion post based on multiple criteria:

• Relationship to group goals – How effectively a discussion post is related to the stated purpose and goals of the group
• Overly promotional – The degree to which a discussion avoids transparent self-promotion or product promotion
• Helpful information – The degree to which information received from the discussion will be helpful to other group members and the originator of the discussion
• Actionable information - How usable and actionable the posted responses will be to other group members and the originator of the discussion
• Trusted advisor status – Will the discussion posted and responses received result in the originator becoming a reliable source for information and advice
• Empathy – How effectively the post relates to the goals, concerns, and issues of the specific group
• Tone – The degree to which the posted discussion shows sincerity, humor, and a personal tone

3. Each post was then ranked by:

• Number of responses received (largest number of discussion responses ranked highest)
• Total effectiveness score (largest overall effectiveness score ranked highest)

What we found was something very interesting!

Based on the Rank of Responses and Rank of Total Score, we saw some relationships emerge.

Relationship 1: High response ranking, low total score ranking

“Hi everyone! If you’re new to the group, please introduce yourself by commenting on this discussion!”

This is an example of a discussion that ranked highly in the number of responses. In fact, this discussion resulted in over 8,000 responses. But it had a very low ranking for total score.

We saw that those discussions with the highest number of responses but that ranked lowest in score relied on very few of the effectiveness measures. These discussions tended to be non-actionable and / or overly promotional and scored lowly in relationship to the groups goals, generating helpful responses, and positioning the originator of the discussion as trusted advisor. For a product company such as ours, overly promotional discussions that result in non-actionable responses will not help us meet our goal of generating marketing and sales leads or positioning ourselves as a trusted expert in our space.

Relationship 2: Middle range response ranking, middle range total score ranking

“When Does the Relationship Between Sales Person and Prospect Begin?”

This is an example of a discussion that fell in the middle range for both number of responses and total score ranking.

These discussions tended score as “somewhat effective” in the criteria of tone, empathy, and relationship to the group’s goals. But they also tended to score as “ineffective” or “somewhat effective” in the criteria of actionable responses, helpful information, and positioning the originator of the discussion as a trusted advisor. This group of discussions also failed to meet PAKRA’s goals for lead generation or brand development.

Relationship 3: Middle to high response ranking, middle to high total score ranking

“Are serious games being used to assess, not just develop? There's increasing interest in using games not just in Learning & Development, but also in assessment. Do you know of any examples?”

This is an example of a discussion that fell in the middle to high range for both number of responses and total score ranking.

The second circle in the chart represents those discussions that had a medium to high response ranking and scored as “somewhat effective” to “effective” in the messaging criteria. We found that this circle represents discussions between subject matter “Gurus” and independent contractors. This group does meet our target market or our goals of lead generation and brand development.

What did PAKRA learn from this exercise?

Based upon this analysis, we learned LinkedIn discussion groups are not an effective space for us to launch a marketing campaign to meet our goals of generating leads, increasing our brand as an industry expert, or being viewed as a trusted resource in gaming simulations and SaaS platforms for our target market.

If you launched a similar exercise, would you have the same results? This is not the question you should ask! The question is not whether our results and findings are replication-agnostic or whether our results will always hold true for you. The question to ask is “will this marketing campaign meet my identified goals in my target market?” It’s critical to understand your own marketing goals, your target market, and the marketing channel that you are exploring.

The key finding to our exercise is that there is free, publicly available data that will allow you to determine patterns and help you understand how a specific channel works. This allows you to identify how people engage and then decide if this is what you want to emulate in a given campaign and whether you will meet your desired goals.

Tweet

Conversations with Garry Schultz - a customer care visionary, author, and classical musician

As a customer care visionary and past customer service leader for global organizations such as Sonic Solutions, Roxio, and RIM; Garry Schultz is passionate about delivering best in class service with a relentless focus on the customer.

This interview with Garry is part of our series about learning, games, social media, crowd-sourcing, and work performance.

RD> Are you a gamer? If yes, what are your favorite Games?

GS> Rini, yes I go way back with computer games, from the very start with the command line games. You know - 'pick up gold', 'run fast', and literal typed commands. From there I recall spending time in the first-person-shooter game Wolfinstien, then Duke Nukem. My favorite type of game is The SIMs. I also like the puzzle based game genre, but I am a little dated with titles. I don't have as much time to game these days as I once had but I keep up with the newest offerings. However, I haven't seen significant new developments in some time. MMOs (massively multiplayer online games) are interesting and the innovation of deploying them in real-time, with multiple players is certainly a cool play.

And my favorite games? Well I have been bitten by the Angry Birds craze on my iPad. Rovio Corp’s attention to detail and the way the programmers have married quasi-real world physics to the game world is great..... I mean the trajectory calculations of the birds and the fashion in which the structures collapse - genius! Really nice balance of whimsy and reality - just the right mix.

Professionally, and you know this as we have riffed on the topic - games have a huge business centric potential with Gen X and Gen Y (and just around the corner Gen Z). Consider that the average attention span of a young person today is dynamically different than it was when I has coming up. Today, access to Information is instantaneous. Sure libraries are still there, but why would a student spend an evening in the stacks when she can wiki up answers, with references, in 9 nano seconds. So, while I was expected to weed through and absorb a wall of documentation at my first job = today's entry level associates need to be fed pertinent information in short, sharp bites. This is where games come in. Educate through interactive gaming.... learntainment, enterlearnment? The Germans probably have a word for it.

RD> You have written a book about customer care, The Customer Care and Contact Center Handbook (published by ASQ Quality Press) What are the key ingredients that make a world class customer care organization? Do you see the key ingredients changing over time?

GS> The key ingredient is to serve your target customer and to have a relentless focus on the consumer. Where this over-simplification gets to be interesting is balancing customer needs with fiscal restraints. This is to suggest that one cannot always economically deliver what the consumer wishes.

The key ingredients to world class customer care have not changed but what has changed are the channels, conduits, and turnaround time to deliver the services. Point in fact - I was listening to a web-cast a couple of weeks ago and the context was Social Media (SM). The crux of the presentation was positioned as a new innovation: crowd-sourcing. But when the speaker delved into crowd-sourcing it was evident that crowd-sourcing has huge overlap with the concept of 'forum gurus' which is an old concept given a new set of clothes in the context of social media.

It’s the same relationship of mass collaboration that is brokered by personnel who aren’t on payroll. Call it what you may, but it’s been around for sometime.

There are a few real challenges with social media. It’s the turnaround time issue, the immediate response that Twitter users expect, the limitation of 140 characters, and making sure that you do not discount corporate liability based on precedent (If Fred got a free upgrade where is mine? And why are you making me ask for it? Just give me what Fred got.).

RD> How can social media channels be leveraged for customer care?

GS> First off let's be clear - managing social media channels is not an option... it is a necessity! If you are reading this and do not have a social media strategy in place - give me a call. I can assist. The key here is to be up and operational on SM for your Customers - they demand it to be so.

Enough on NOT acting.

Social media channels can be leveraged very effectively and I could write a book on the topic - and I am. So let me riff on the foundation of SM in the customer care context… First off, if you want to be successful with your customers in the SM context - take off your customer care hat and get with your counterparts in Marketing and Sales. Social media, at this stage of the game, cannot be compartmentalized into pre-sales, sales, marketing, and post-sale support disciplines. The lines aren’t even grey, they are non-existent. The necessary approach goes across the organization like no other channel.

So, it is time to collaborate closely with your colleagues in other departments.

And secondly - once you are sitting down with your colleagues, the stakeholders, define a working charter for SM. Understand what your goals are as a corporation. From there you can get into the operational business of scalability, repeatability, SLAs, and meaningful performance metrics. These are the core competencies for customer care professionals.

RD> You led a large organization which managed global consumers and their needs. Do you see big differences (due to socio-cultural, geographic, demographic differences) among consumers in how they want to receive customer care and what their expectations are?

GS> Big question, Rini. The short answer is - yes.

The longer answer? There are significant differences based on cultural norms and expectations. Further, there are overlapping differences within cultures (a Venn diagram of this would be interesting exercise) based on additional factors such as: age of the sub-group within the demographic, computer literacy of the sub-group and the whole issue of entitlement. Let`s explore two extremes in the context of non-mission critical consumer software.

EASY - Generation Y... the Millennial. If a failure is experienced, Gen Ys do not reach for the phone. They often go to their own peer-network and find a maven in their sphere-of-acquaintances. Further they are quite at home with self-service and online knowledge bases. The Millennial knows how to conduct an effective search and can understand the subsequent instructions to rectify a failure.

HARD – Baby Boomers...the retiree. If a failure is experienced, the baby-boomer reaches for the phone. They do not have an effective peer-network and often have gaps in their general knowledge and computer literacy. There is an illustrative video of a comedian on YouTube that pokes some fun at the dynamic, fast forward to 4:40 in the video....

Kidding aside - we need to assist the Boomers and Gen Y, and the industry does.

RD> How do you learn? The new and younger associates coming to work in customer care organizations -- do they learn differently than you and me?

GS> I am a visual learner. Show me a graphic and I get the message, text takes me more time to absorb. But the key is... Let me give you an example.

I have wonderful daughter and I taught her a mantra and have reinforced it her entire life. It is really simple.

Ask questions and listen

Jenna is 26 now and has completed three degrees. The truly hard part of the mantra is the 'listen' component. We are simply not good at listening and the fact is that the younger we are, the less developed our ability to listen is. There is no doubt Mother Nature has a sense of humor; when young she endows us with the ability to absorb and learn at our most accelerated rate.... but with a smile she dampens youth’s ability to effectively listen. Funny lady.

That said, today's entry level personnel require training to be tuned to their world. Knowledge transfer (and validation) is one of the most difficult challenges in today's businesses. As I said earlier, attention span is different with today's youth. SMS text messaging has taught a generation to communicate in a truncated form. They talk in sentence fragments (okay - so do I at times) and if you observe them at a party, they don’t seem to have the patience to get through a four minute pop song but continually 'sample scan' snippets of tunes. Golly, as an effective punishment for Gen Y they should be made to sit down and listen to Wagner's entire Ring Cycle (eat your peas.... don't make me get the Wagner). Don't get me wrong, the reality is there is nothing wrong with any of these Gen Y attributes, they are simply different.

What needs to change is our idea of how to effectively transfer knowledge. Like our Customers, we have to come to our associates in a fashion that resonates. And this is the utility of training by games. Not to be thought of 'slight of hand' but a powerful tool to not only get the fundamentals across but to have a meaningful gauge of the success of the knowledge transfer.

RD> How do you think current training practices meeting the needs of customer care organizations?

GS> Not very well. I have worked with some large players in the outsourcing business and for the most part my observation is that training lags available innovation. At best, some of the organizations have put up computer based testing (CBT) programs and rendered the testing (knowledge transfer validation) online. But the core issue of training line personnel in how to handle customers has not progressed. The issue isn't technical knowledge but the old customer care stalwarts of empathy, listening and effectively assisting the consumer. And when it comes to social media, the training chasm is vast and is one of the drivers behind why most organizations that are active on social media channels are doing the work in-house.

RD> How do you envision using games and simulations to teach people what to do here?

GS> This is where I think PAKRA has an incredible play and opportunity. The PAKRA training demos that I have seen are excellent and I believe will resonate with the target Gen Ys that make up the majority of the post-sale talent pool. It’s a win/win. The little touches, like the guy who walks by the cubicle and his comments are golden, it brings levity to the exercise which is another resonator. I think an agent accustomed to the text based format of most CBT programs will embrace the far more dynamic PAKRA world. As for portability, repeatability and scalability PAKRA slams traditional teacher-lecture based models. The gold spot - training that is enjoyable to progress through.

RD> What is next for you?

GS> Professionally, I have a number of pokers in the fire - to borrow a phrase. I have been working with my publisher (ASQ Quality Press) on two additional manuscripts - one on social media and one on contact centers for the entry level hiree. And I am at the initial stages of entering the customer care consulting game - but truth be told my target is the right opportunity regardless of the structure.

On the creative side, being that I have had some time of late, I have managed to finally release a CD of original compositions. You can find them on iTunes if you search for Garry Schultz or Cheerful Insanity. I’ve also rediscovered the joy of some of the classical etudes I was taught back-in-the-day.

RD> Thanks for your time today, Garry. I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for you.

GS> Thanks, Rini. It’s been great catching up.

Tweet

Conversations with Peter Delgrosso, SVP, Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp., golfer, active VOC listener

As an innovator, avid golfer and SVP, Business Development of Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp., Peter Delgrosso proactively stays ahead of customer's needs by actively listening and diligently assessing the voice of customer channels.
This interview with Peter is part of our series about learning, games, social media, user-adoption, crowd-sourcing, and work performance.

RD> First, on behalf of the PAKRA team, we would like to thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Your company is a spin-off of the parent company D&B. What does the word “credibility” used in your company’s name mean to you?
PD> We see credibility as including credit but going beyond credit to include the more holistic attributes of integrity, reliability, trust and other factors we all take into account when doing business with a company. Credit, in the strictest sense is a financial measure – credibility speaks to character.

RD> How will you teach/communicate to a small-medium business (SMB) client that they need to care about their online reputation?
PD> We’ve all had the experience of going to a business web site you’ve never heard of and having concerns as to, “Is this a site I can trust?” or “How do I know this company is reliable?” These questions are particularly important for smaller companies that don’t have the a million dollar plus ad budget to build their brand and general awareness or a 40-year history upon which to establish their credibility. For the small companies especially – online reputation is everything. One of our products, called SelfMonitor, actually enables companies to see a visual representation through charts and graphs and other displays of their various business credit scores with the added ability for SMBs to submit relevant information on their business that is vital to determining their overall creditworthiness and ultimately their credibility.

RD> Is your product suite similar to how eBay or Amazon rates their sellers -- i.e. crowdsourced?
PD> No. Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp. occupies its own space providing business credit and credibility services that is accessed by a wide range of businesses looking to both make business decisions and determine a business’ creditworthiness and actively manage their profile. We factor statistical credit measures such as a company’s PAYDEX® and Financial Stress Score into the equation – but we also solicit feedback from partners and vendors to provide a more human picture. It’s that combination that makes us unique.

RD> We met due to a quick resolution of an issue that we were having with our Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp. account. Your CEO Jeff Stibel used his Twitter handle to address our tweeted concern from our CMO Michelle Stewart. When she tweeted, she had called customer service/sales agent using the traditional interaction channel -- phone. Using Twitter, Jeff resolved our issue within the time she was on hold. That was a remarkably fast and awesome resolution.
Where does your company use social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) the most: (1) Brand marketing (2) Lead generation (3) Closing sales (4) Customer Service (5) Customer retention and upselling
PD> The way we met is a great example of how effective social media can be, in this case Twitter, to providing real business value. Social media is an evolving space – and at any given moment it can be used for all of the things you mention. As I previously mentioned, we always want to be listening to our customers and social media is a terrific way of doing so. Twitter and Facebook are probably the two social media networks that we leverage most. I would say we use Twitter more as a conversational resource, monitoring customer comments and responding to them as quickly as possible. Facebook is more of a relationship medium, enabling us to send out updates to our connections about company events such as an ongoing speaker series we run called “Credibility Live.” Personally, I use LinkedIn as an excellent outreach vehicle for business relationships and Twitter to monitor industry news and insight.

RD> Is your social media channel management a budgeted effort?
PD> Yes. We believe strongly in its value and have dedicated resources managing the channel.

RD> How do you learn?
PD> I learn by watching, by listening – and ultimately by trial and error. Learning from mistakes is often the best way to grow.

RD> Are you a gamer? If yes, what games do you play?
PD> I grew up playing on the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 then graduated to the PlayStation2 earlier this decade and sadly that’s where it all ended. That’s about the limit to my gaming these days given a hectic work schedule and growing family with numerous kids’ responsibilities.

RD> How do you teach your employees to leverage information and data to interact with a prospect/customer?
PD> We teach our employees to listen carefully and act quickly. It is crucial to understand our customers’ needs and leverage all the resources at our disposal to help them achieve their goals. We have several hundred Credit Advisors who provide sales and customer training support to our customers. Every one of these Credit Advisors has gone through a rigorous training process both at the point of hire and during their tenure at the company that focuses not only on good customer service, but also on the fundamentals of business credit and business credit formation. This includes a general understanding of the pros and cons of various types of corporate structures, differences between debt and equity financing and the pros and cons of each, and other general issues that a business owner should be thinking about when seeking to manage their business credit. Our staff is able to talk with people about their various business credit scores and what they can do to improve them as well as other general business issues they may have questions about.

RD> Your company and ours both sell software: What do you find are the biggest drivers for user adoption?
PD> At the end of the day it’s all about providing value to our customers and leveraging as many channels as possible to reach the business owner. Providing value rings true across all industries and the reason why customers are either loyal to your company or not, it’s that simple. I would say the key value provided by Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp. is the ability of a business to access and impact all their pertinent business credit information in a single location online with tools, tips and recommendations on how to improve them. Our value proposition is compelling, straight-forward and provides a great visual representation of concepts that may be foreign to many business owners. Business credit is an enduring theme that stays with the business throughout their life-cycle providing ongoing benefit to those businesses that are proactive and make sure they are following best practices to put their business in the best possible light. As more businesses adopt best practices and improve their business credit, the better the chances are for them to succeed and achieve the needed cash flow and credibility required to create a successful business.

RD> Thank you so much for your time, and for sharing your and your Company's vision.
PD> You are welcome! You questions were very thoughtful.

Tweet

Conversations with Mick Mancuso, a design instructor, video game enthusiast, avid reader, and skeptic.

As Level Design Instructor at Southern Methodist University, video game enthusiast, avid reader, and skeptic, Mick applies his vast experience to teaching college students at one of the premier graduate video game education programs in the US – The Guildhall at SMU. Mick has been in the game industry since the late 80s and is passionate about theory and design of games, education, and the use of technology in today’s society.

This interview with Mick is the thirteenth in our series about learning, games, social media, crowd-sourcing, and work performance.

MS> How have you been? It’s been a long time since we’ve spoke.

MM> Things have been going very well. I’ve since moved on from KAOS Studios and I’m at SMU now. I’m teaching Level Design and I’m having a blast.

MS> That’s great to hear! Tell me more about why you’re having so much fun.

MM> It's all about whom I’m teaching. When I first got the gig, I was a little apprehensive. Both in terms of - do I really want to leave the industry and go in to teaching? Will I be good at it? Will I enjoy it? I was dealing with all of those issues, but when I got down here I found that the faculty is great, the head of the department is great, but mostly – it’s the students! This is a master degree program. The students are people who have decided that they know what they want to do; they know that the industry is a lot of work, and this is just what they want to do. They have so much enthusiasm! It is so fun to work with them.

MS> That’s really cool. It sounds like there a lot of energy and passion there.

MM> Oh yeah, it’s amazing.

MS> You’re obviously a gamer. What do you play?

MM> Right now, even as we speak – I’m playing Civilization V. I was in the middle of a game when you called! I’ve been playing the Civilization series ever since Civ I and I just love what they’ve done with Civ 5. I’ve just recently finished Shogun: Total War. I really like the entire Shogun series. I really like RPGs as well, like Dragon Age: Origins. Also - Mass Effect, Bio Shock, and Fall Out 3. And I’m waiting for Half-life 2, Episode 3, to please come out soon. Those guys are worse than my favorite novelist at getting that thing done. RTSs are also one of my favorite genres.

In terms of gaming, I’ve always been into games since I was a kid. My parents were into card games. Whenever we went to visit the grandparents, we always played poker or other card games. Board games – me and my brothers always played board games as we were growing up. So, I’ve been a gamer for years and years and years.

MS> It’s funny; I think that most people have certain childhood memories associates with games. Some of my first memories of games involve playing Connect4 at my grandmother’s house with my cousins.

MM> I love Connect4. There were some great games from that time.

MS> What was your first favorite video game?

MM> It was Antietam by SSI. It was a Civil War game, this was in 1987 or 1988. It was actually the game that inspired me to want to get in to video games. I actually went to work for SSI a couple of years later. At the time, I said to myself “I want to do that.” So, I went down to the studio and said “Hey, hire me.” They asked me what I knew about computer games and I told them “nothing – but hire me anyway!” And – they didn’t. I took some programming classes at the local community college, this was in California. About a year later, I knocked on their door again and they hired me. I’ve been in it ever since.

MS> Wow, that’s a great story!

MS> Tell me about how you learn. What’s your learning style?


MM> It depends what I am trying to learn. For example, when I had to learn programming – I tried to learn it on my own first by just getting the books. I realized quickly to just get going, I needed more structure in taking me through the basics. My first class was a Pascal class, then a C class, and then an 8086 assembly language class. They were all introductory classes just to get me over the hump to help me learn the jargon and the basics. Today, if I’m going to learn a new engine, I try to go and find video tutorials. And what I really prefer more than video tutorials are detailed text walkthroughs, but they don’t do those much anymore. But video tutorials and reference materials work almost as well. With video tutorials, I feel that they are sometimes leading me in a direction that I don’t want to go yet. For example, in learning a 3D engine they almost always first teach you how to build an interior. Be it a dungeon, walls, rooms and doors. But the way that I always approach anything that I’m building is to first put it in a geographical location. My mindset, probably from playing RPGs, always goes to the terrain first. I want to learn the terrain editor first and THEN teach me about building the rooms and such. There’s no right or wrong either way, this is just my preference.

MS> This is very interesting to me. With what we do at PAKRA, as far scripting our games and simulations, before I can even start to write a scenario of “what’s happening in a simulation”, I’ve got to think about “who” these characters are. So when you talk about knowing the terrain before you know a room, it’s similar to how I really think through who the character is and knowing this person before thinking about what they are going to do or where they are going to do it. It’s interesting to hear that your mind works in a similar way.

MS> You brought up something that I wanted to ask you about when you mentioned that you see things going more towards video tutorials and away from some of the written instructional guides. Do you see this as being a result of how the under-40 generations learn?

MM> Video tutorials are very good because they can actually show you “click on this button right here, this is were it is.” My issue with video tutorials is that in essence, they go very slowly compared to how I want to learn. I see the button, but they are talking for another 25 or so seconds before we can go on to the next topic. Sometimes I get frustrated at the pace. I don’t think that it’s about being under 40 years old, I think that it’s just a matter of how easy it is to make videos now. The tools are out there and videos are easy to make. I would like to see a much more integrated system -- video, web, all working in the actual editor all integrated together. The technology is there but there are a lot of indexing and UI issues. It’s not an easy problem to solve.

MS> I think that with technology in general the expectation now is, at least it is for me, I expect things very quickly. With some tutorials, you’ve got all of this technology but it still feels like you are being fed more information that you need or want. It’s not as quick and efficient as you think that it could be.

MS> You are with people in their early to mid-20’s every day because you’re teaching. What evolution do you seen in learning styles and teaching? What’s changed over the years?

MM> It’s been a long time since I’ve been in school as a learner, it was the late 80’s. At that time, it was very traditional. Everyone sits down a desk, the teacher lectures, and if it’s a good teacher – you can ask questions. What I can speak to is the approach that Guildhall takes in term of teaching. We have level designers, programmers, artists and are just starting up a production track. They each go through their specialty but the focus of the program at The Guildhall is that they actually build games as teams – in addition to a solid foundation on their individual skills. It’s much more broad and it’s teaching by doing. We give you an introduction to concepts and the engine – and then say “Now put it to work!” We have metrics for quality and specify some content, but we are much more interested in the group dynamics and communication within the team and whether they can realize their vision. We guide them along the way but leave it up to the group as to whether they are going to listen to us. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they really surprise us with what they can get done. And we still have traditional lecture classes as well.

MS> Talk to me about trends that you see in casual gaming, Serious Games, and simulation technology. Where do you see things going?

MM> I see things just expanding like crazy. I think that the entire casual gaming revolution – and really it’s an on-demand gaming revolution due to the internet and how powerful the browsers have gotten over the last few years – have completely reshaped the distribution system for games. We still have our AAA products, and those will always be there, but there will be fewer of them - the cost has just risen to high. The competition will get more fierce. I think that AAA games will become more equivalent to Hollywood blockbuster movies, for all three platforms – PlayStation3, XBOX360, and PC. The new guys on the block are all of the casual games, and that’s really a misnomer and that will shake out. I think that there will be multiple genres that will be opening up and defined over the next few years. The audience that I see being tapped into are people who want to play games but they aren’t hardcore gamers. They don’t have the two to three hours to spend like those of us who are obsessed with gaming. They want to get in to a game within seconds, be playing within seconds, play for five to ten minutes and drop it and come back later With casual games, the internet really taps in to this. How we build games now needs to be cognizant of this.

MS> You’re right. I think that’s where the Facbeook games, the Zynga games, have been so popular. Studies show that it’s women playing these games and I think that it’s partially because they can go in, be in on seconds, use their phone or a computer, and be in for five minutes between other things that are going on. Like you said, there are these distinct niches. I’m like you. I personally will find three hours to play a game I love, because that’s just how I am. But that’s not the entire market. I don’t think that there was a demand in the market – but there was a void. Now that the void has been filled, the demand is now there.

MM> I think that is exactly right. For a long, long time the gaming industry was basically selling to itself. You wrote games for other gamers. It didn’t even begin to go mainstream until the late 1990s/early 2000s. Now it’s a multi-billion industry. But the biggest piece of the pie wasn’t being addressed – the casual gamers. I saw something recently that said the difference between casual gamers and hardcore gamers is that the hardcore gamers self-identify. If you claim to be a hardcore gamer, you’re a hardcore gamer - and that's a very small segment of the population.

With casual games, just because it’s quick in and quick out, that doesn’t mean that the game has to be simple. You can make your game as complicated as you want it to be, as long as you remember that the cost of entry has to be very short. It means that you have to spend a lot more time introducing your mechanics and do it more slowly, more organically. They may be playing the game only in five to ten minute chunks, but three weeks down the line they can be playing something as complicated as any triple AAA product.

MS> Absolutely! These five minute chunks are played two or three times a day and the game builds each time. It’s just a different build and different experience but in the long run it is absolutely as immersive and complex.

MS> Let’s talk about social media. What do you use? What don’t you use? And why?


MM> I use Facebook a lot. But I only use it to keep in contact with friends and family. It’s a way for me to see what my kids are up to, what they are thinking about. When my son was in Iraq, they did not have Internet, but two years later they did have access when he was in Afghanastan. It made a huge difference in terms of how much I worried about him because we could post 2 or 3 messages back and forth on Facebook. He would post a status update and I would think “Oh, great. He’s okay!” My daughter lives in Australia and I follow her Facebook page as well, and it’s not that I’m keeping tabs on her, but it’s like “Oh, she’s posted. She’s doing fine!” I don’t have to worry about her.

MS> What else do you use besides Facebook? Are you a tweeter?

MM> I signed up on Twitter, but I don’t even remember how to sign on. My thing is that if I have something to say, 140 characters isn’t enough. Twitter feels like we are legitimizing the sound byte and that doesn’t do anything for me.

MS> Tell me about what else you enjoy. What else are you passionate about?

MM> I love to read. Generally it’s science fiction, mystery, or fantasy. But I also love to read about history and I love skeptical literature. I’m a huge skeptic, so I read a lot in that area. I’m reading The Landscape of Morality. It’s very interesting. It talks about the elements of human morality that some people say that science can’t address, and how that’s wrong. There is no reason why science can’t address this and the author lays out his case pretty well.

MS> Can we talk about educational gaming and how these are designed and how content is introduced?

MM> When you’re creating games for learning or training, or even casual games, it’s not so much about the content that you need to get across to a known player base – but how do the people being trained live their everyday jobs? If this is training for an everyday job, you have to put it in that context. You learn where they live, where they work, and how they work. What's the jargon of their workplace? What assumptions do they bring to the experience? You have to find out what you don't know about the job - what is there overall context. Then 90% of making the content relevant is already done b/c you’ve placed it in a package that they already understand. I’m finding the idea of context is going up and down and throughout everything that I’m teaching now. For example, if we are talking about documentation, I will ask “Why do we put our documents in a certain formats?” It’s so that you can lead the reader through the context so that as you get deeper and deeper in to the details, the reader follows you the entire way. You cannot give the context in one big chunk. Give them a brief back of the book review of what the design is all about. If the game has a story, give the broad outlines and then – you can start to develop the characters and what they are about. Then you can expand more on the story and what the gameplay mechanics are going to be. Now lets understand player motivation. Now I can break up the levels. The reader is going with me. As long as your context stays relevant to the depth of information that you are trying to give, you are leading the reader along. You’ve got to know the context that you are building the game for – not the people paying for the game, but for the people playing the game, to really make it valuable for them.

MS> Absolutely! This is something that PAKRA has to address in every simulation that we build in training. Our products are typically used for business process training – but that means something different for every client. The context of the training is different for someone who works at home versus someone who works in a call center, the typical education level of the agent changes the context, and the nature of the job also changes the context. What the job is and how it is done can be unique experiences for each client. If we don’t understand this, incorporate this, and introduce this correctly, the simulation isn’t effective for learning. It’s got to me done right.

MM> So many people who get in to Serious Games are gamers who are more interested in “the game” and not the purpose of the game. You need to have both.

MS> I agree. The game is the delivery mechanism but the back-story to it is just as important. It’s both. You cannot have one with the other.

MS> Thank you so much for talking with me today, Mick. I’ve enjoyed our conversation immensely.

MM> I did too. Thank you.

Tweet

Finally! A neurologist illustrates how video gaming can train the brain and enable learning

We have been claiming that repeated game play helps to learn.
Finally! the fMRI studies provide evidence.
Judy Willis, a neurologist, provides an engaging and lucid evidence-based explanation of our conjecture on Edutopia's blog.
Enjoy!

Tweet

Conversations with Anneke Seley, a Sales 2.0 and social selling thought leader, surfer, questioner of the status quo

As the thought leader of the Sales 2.0 and social selling methodology, a surfer, twelfth employee of Oracle and CEO and founder of Phone Works, Anneke Seley questions the status quo, promotes sales 2.0 best practices and social selling. Her team at Phone Works, improves the operations of sales organizations ranging from global multinationals to start-up organizations.

This interview with Anneke is the twelfth in our series about learning, games, social media, crowd-sourcing, and work performance.

RD> First, on behalf of the PAKRA team, we would like to thank you for being completely instrumental in us selling in the Sales vertical and also being a mentor and adviser to us.
AS> PAKRA’s time is now. I’m glad to collaborate.

RD> So! Are you a gamer?
AS> I play scrabble through Facebook. I am definitely a crossword puzzle fan. I was introduced to Kinect by my cousin’s kid last Thanksgiving, particularly the Dance game. I can see myself playing this especially in the cold weather. I’m a Farmville wife. Once in a while, I look over Jack’s (my husband Jack Oswald) shoulder and he lets me play with some sheep and fertilizer.
RD> He does? Jack constantly plays Farmville, at least according to his Facebook posts. Working with bio ammonia in real life – well! He has to live his brand in a game. We all should live our brand in games.

RD> When I first met you in virtual space, I was very intrigued with the tagline of your personal brand on LinkedIn: "Questioner of the status quo" --- Why is it important to you to question status quo?
AS> It’s important to me because it is very easy to get comfortable with the way things are. If we don’t challenge ourselves, if we don’t change, if we don’t evolve, then we don’t improve. We don’t progress.
RD> So! Is the challenge and change that you are referring to only in your personal sphere, or are you also translating that in your work ethic and customers?
AS> It is not just about my personal life but also I use this mantra in the business world. More importantly, I am always looking for opportunities to improve organizational performance, improve a function, improve a group of people and their skills sets, improve business processes, implement new technologies. There is always room for improvement. Until and unless we question the status quo and the way things are, we cannot evolve nor progress.

RD> This brings us to Sales 2.0. Of course you are THE thought leader in both practice and theory. A quick question about that: Because there are many functional silos that customers have to navigate, what is the start and end step of a sales process in the Sales 2.0 world?
AS> Traditionally we think of things in very structured buckets. In today’s world, that does not work any more. There is so much interconnectedness and collaboration. There is across-the-board customer engagement. That is what sales is all about. The sales process can start differently for different people. It can start online; it can start with social media. It starts where the customer engages with your company. Hopefully, the process never ends. In fact it is more important after the sale as the customer is well qualified to continue to buy either different products and services or additional products and services. A lot of companies have different functions - new business reps and reps that focus on customer successes and nurture the existing customer base.
RD> Do you think that there is one story to be had? For instance, a Sales VP wants to get some part of the sales cycle done so they make a compromise to complete that part or should there be specialization in the Sales process?
AS> I think it is hard for one person to participate and play the entire Sales process role and play each part really well. It is very hard to manage an engagement through to the closing process, especially as one’s company grows, leading to the need to specialize. Also, people tend to be better at one part of the sales cycle than another part of the cycle. Some are better at engaging customers early on and some are better at closing. Specialization will happen.

RD> If you look at your own experience and the experience of your 300+ clients, what are the key factors to both deploy Sales 2.0 principles appropriately and to sustain it? In other words, what are the critical success factors for sustainable user adoption to Sales 2.0?
AS> I think many organizations try to change things very quickly involving too many people. I truly believe that if organizations start small, hand select and involve a small group of people who are very innovation-oriented and who are excited about trying something new and improve their productivity and in turn of course make more money, it is a better start. In my own career at Oracle, there was no way we could have come in and said, “we are going to implement an inside sales team globally and now you have to share your accounts.”
- The trust has to be built; the experiences have to be had. The field reps had to see that inside sales would not ruin their customer relationships and would only enhance the relationships. And once the field sees more revenue to be had, then the middle adopters come more easily.
- Also, you need the right executive sponsorship.
- Metrics and process are not intuitive and this makes it hard for people to rally around it.
- Also the implementation has to be consistent and requires lots of discipline.

RD> I also find that processes, metrics and a visible accountability system –are not liked by many folks in different levels of management (especially first-line managers, supervisors). That is one the biggest resistance we find in users adopting our PAKRA system.
AS> Gerhard Gschwandtner of Selling Power Magazine quotes Warren Buffet: "It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked." That explains it. When I interviewed Stu Schmidt (formerly at Cisco WebEx) for my book he said that it took him a year to get the sales team to really embrace a new Sales 2.0-style sales process, based on their buyers’ buying cycles. That first year, the intensive focus was to get the first line manages on board. It takes practice.
Also, there is a perception that in some accounts, especially those located here in Silicon Valley, who fancy themselves as being innovative and creative, that if one implements process and metrics the creativity will somehow be hampered.
RD> You are now going down my memory lane of the entire Lean and Six Sigma Operations life that I led prior to PAKRA. There is some truth to that last belief because there are some people who like “check-marks” and who make it very bureaucratic. In fact, one of the things I always point out to my team, “over my dead body will you collect data on things that do not give us direction to improve and change.”
AS> You’re right. There has to be a structure that allows room for creativity to blossom. But with no structure at all then all the creativity in the world is not going to be productive in the business world.

RD> How do you define social selling?
AS> Essentially the same way that I define Sales 2.0. It is a more efficient and effective way of selling and buying for both the seller and the buyer, enabled by technology – in the case of social selling, using social technology.

RD> You are involved with Social Selling University. Tell me more about it.
AS> It is a program sponsored by InsideView. It includes in-person workshops, webinars and online content for sales professionals at all levels. It is being rolled out this month. I will be speaking on March 24. It is the first of its kind to help companies understand the opportunity of social selling and develop strategies and implement a social media process and metrics. My particular interest is in developing a track for executives. There are great examples of grassroots activities, but almost all are at the individual level. The opportunity is to capture the best practices such that we can enable and scale sales, marketing and customer success at organizations.

RD> Do you think the accountability of sales managers changes with social selling implementation? I perceive that the organizational structure to manage the process of acquiring and retaining a customer becomes flatter. Do you agree?
AS> I recently read an online post where this question was posed: “Why are we hiring social media managers? We don’t have email managers, or fax managers. This is just another channel.” This is just approaching a customer via different channels. Is that what you are asking?
RD> Well! Let me give you an example. Let’s say I work for a company that sells in different verticals. I sell to the Education market. I belong to a LinkedIn group, where a prospect wants something in the Healthcare vertical, which I know that my company also sells. Right now, I am not incentivized to promote that information and it ends up being a lost sale for my company. The chances of me encountering that request are much higher than before. I see an opportunity to create a new incentive and accountability structure that does not let this opportunity die. Who is held accountable for taking actions on these encounters?
AS> It takes a village or a corporation to communicate with customers. Lots of people are using social media channels and they have a higher chance to meet a buyer. Is everyone then a salesperson? I absolutely agree that the organization become flatter. Salesforce.com gives the example that in Chatter, someone who is an entry-level salesperson can now chat with Marc Benioff because some online engagement allows them to do so. It takes away the hierarchy. Social technology is the great equalizer.

RD> What kind of resistance are you seeing when you talk to your clients about effectively implementing social media?
AS> There are several objections:
- We see skepticism that social media is for kids and personal views and there is no place for it in business and waste of salesperson’s time
- We see the lack of strategic initiatives. There are more grass-root level initiatives that are not scalable and repeatable across the organization
- We have poor metrics management, as most don’t know what to measure to appropriately monitor success
- We see the need for a process that is integrated to the sales workflow and sales process

RD> How do you learn?
AS> I ask questions. I read and I write. I have conversations. I go to the theater. I put myself in sometimes challenging and uncomfortable situations. I practice and I repeat.

RD> Do you think the current training providers and practices are meeting the needs of today’s salespeople especially in the context of Sales 2.0?
AS> My perception is that: like in Sales 2.0, if the idea is to customize the message to the buyer in different parts of the sales cycle, then should we not develop learning content and deliver to the learner when they need it in the learning cycle and deliver the right information at the right time in the right medium - the way they want to engage in learning? There is a huge opportunity here. There is also an opportunity to introduce process and metrics in training content. I think giving people a fun and engaging way to learn the content is important. And I also think that this is how most learners, me included, want to learn and practice. All of this leads to a huge opportunity and that's where I think PAKRA is positioned well.

RD> You have a career where it seems that you do all kinds of fun and innovative things driven by this “we’ll figure it out” attitude. What is next for you? Give us an exclusive scoop.
AS> I’m learning to snowboard. My friend Sarah Cooper started this company called Adventurous in San Francisco that uses the Endless Slope and provides a really cool way to learn snowboarding. It’s a technology enabled training device. It is all about muscle memory and I am completely hooked on it.
RD> I am checking out this site as we speak… This looks awesome! You can avoid the cold, dry wind, and snow and still you can get this simulated experience. This is really cool.

RD> Games! Simulations! Practice! Learning! Grand finale to our chat. Thank you for your time Anneke. This was most lovely.
AS> You are welcome! Talk to you soon.

Tweet

Conversations with Harlina Sodhi, SVP at Reliance Industries, a change catalyst and Learning visionary

As recently appointed Senior Vice President of Learning and Organization Development for Reliance Industries, an ultimate Change Catalyst, and a believer of the “Tao of Cricket”, Harlina Sodhi is leading the effort to bring progressive and process driven, workforce training and development to Reliance Industries that is in line with company’s Strategic and Business Transformation goals.
This interview with Harlina is the eleventh in our series about learning, games, social media, crowd-sourcing and work performance.

RD> First, on behalf of the PAKRA team, we would like to thank you for being completely instrumental in implementing PAKRA system at your past employer - Genpact. Next, sincere congratulations for seizing this vast opportunity at your new gig -- Reliance. This is awesome news.
HS> Thank you. This is a huge opportunity for me to lead and execute on Reliance vision of getting to be the world’s best company for learning and development of workforce. And as you know, the reason I passionately spearheaded the efforts in Genpact for PAKRA is because I believe in the value that it offers. Right product and platform in the right place at the right time is PAKRA !

RD> So! Are you a gamer?
HS> I play Chess. A strategy-based game intrigues me. Also I am an avid car rallyist …but I am also pleased to share, ever since I got my smartphone, I don’t literally have to risk my life but am able to simulate the experience by playing mobile games like www.carsvideogame.com and Angry Bird

RD> How do you learn?
HS> I learn by doing. Tell me - Show me initially, and then I have to do it and then I can teach one. Learning that involves different levels of achievement motivates me.

RD> You and I are more or less in the same age group (Well! I am older ha!) -- do you think the way we learned and ways we were taught is different from the younger generation that is getting into the workforce? If yes, how different?
HS> It is completely different. The younger generation, in particular when you consider that places like in India and other emerging markets where the median age of an employee is 35 years, learn differently and want to be taught differently. For example, their attention span is short, (140 characters Twitter revolution), they learn on-the-go and they want to pull information when they need it in small chewable chunks. They want technology-enabled learning with streaming media, threaded conversations, blogs, games, simulations and not just a teacher delivering lectures and batch-based learning events.

RD> What role do you see for immersive learning using Games and simulations in today's workplace?
HS> The DNA is changing and being reprogrammed. In a place like India, that leap-frogged it’s growth using technology (i.e. the dabbawallahs, the dhobi, the Tuk-Tuk driver and the person living on the street all have cell phones and are probably playing Angry Bird as they stand at traffic lights), user-driven content is how information is being managed and leveraged. Also, many more women are in the workforce today than 25 years ago and they are influencing their children. This is what economic growth brings. In such type of a growth environment, immersive learning is what all are demanding. It is user-driven need and the role is very strong.

RD> How do you anticipate Social Media and crowd-sourcing will be used in business applications and Learning?
HS> It is coming and vehemently needed as platform for peer-to-peer learning. By “it is coming” I mean that not too many businesses are into it, yet. Like, any adoption cycle where you have innovators, early adopters, initiators, and laggards, here too there are businesses who are innovators and early adopters. Ease of use will drive the utilization of these tools. As you know, this is the ultimate Web 2.0 architecture. It will drive the business applications and how work gets communicated and learned. Based on what I hear from my colleagues and networking groups, there is a demand for a platform that enables the adult-learning paradigm. Brick and Mortar learning and communication channels are more symbolic.

RD> From at multinational companies like Xerox, Zenta, GE, Genpact and now at Reliance, what do you see as trends for Learning and Talent Development offerings in business environment?
HS> It has substantially evolved since I started my job at Xerox when I was 21.
First, for content trends: I am hearing and seeing need for short content and immersive focused delivery that enhances Leadership attributes. Also, I am seeing more demand to provide on-demand domain expertise.

From delivery perspective, I am seeing the movement away from the traditional Level 1 to 3 evaluation based Kirkpatrick model to Level 4; is “Impact on Performance” and ROI and significantly towards Bloom’s taxonomy based learning delivery.

For technology, I am seeing more and more demand for platforms (such as PAKRA) that provides on-demand push and Web 2.0 technology for small and targeted content, games and simulations for immersive learning, peer-learning online community and coaching and mentoring accountability where all this links it to real work performance.

When I first moved to Learning and Talent Development functional area, they typically reported to Human Resources. Progressive businesses are making Learning and Talent Development professionals report to Business and Operations leaders. The reality is that the accountability and responsibility of managing and recruiting high-performing employees still lies in the hands of Business and Operations leaders with Human Resources being an key enabler. That reality will not change in my life-time. With such organizational restructuring, these businesses are able to actualize the value of the monetary investment they put in on-the-job training and talent development efforts.

RD> What is your recommendation for someone entering the world of Learning and Talent Development professionals?
HS> Stop focusing on how many courses the employee completed. Stop focusing on how satisfied the learner is with the trainer or coach. Do not use test scores as the only way to measure ability of an employee to do their job. Focus on real work performance of the employee and how well they can apply the skill you just trained and coached them, to their day-to-day work interactions and the work itself.

RD> Thank you for your time Harlina. If some one can implement change and manage the associated change in an organization, you are the one. Wish you all the best at Reliance.
HS> You are welcome! Talk to you soon.

Tweet