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so with my colleagues what I was trying
00:00:06
to look at was this question of online
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social media and how that's impacting
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our work lives social media is really
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all around us in the recent in recent
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years and we see this in organizations
00:00:21
in terms of how organizations are using
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it to Market Etc but how it affects
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people's work lives is what we were
00:00:28
interested in and this this is really
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where the title When Worlds Collide
00:00:33
comes into play we were really
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interested in how the personal and
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professional lives of employees can
00:00:39
become blurred on online social media
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and so this is where we really um we
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really see both opportunity but also
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challenge for people one of our uh we we
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did some interviews uh as we were doing
00:00:52
this work and one of our interviewees
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said social media or social mindfield
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right this is and really sums up really
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beautifully I think the inherent Paradox
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here we have both A New World opening up
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for us where social media has so many
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amazing uh opportunities to connect and
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to enhance relationships and to build
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new relationships but it also poses
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challenges for us as we think about how
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to manage the relationships that we that
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we have one of the big challenges is
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this notion of the invisible audience
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when we connect to people on Facebook or
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on Twitter or Instagram there are some
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people who are really following us and
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are responding to us or liking us or
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favoring us or they're they're they're
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very visible because they're interacting
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with us in a much more visible way but
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there's often a whole host of people who
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are invisible who are just sort of in
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the background who are watching what
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we're saying or doing but are not
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actively responding and what happens is
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that we can
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often times forget about them when we're
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posing these uh when we're posing
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questions when we're posting information
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uh and what'll happen is sometimes that
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information that we post has some
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unintended effects in terms of how
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people respond to us and that's really
00:02:19
what we were focusing on in this
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research focusing on what are the
00:02:23
consequences of different online social
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media strategies that people have
00:02:32
we identified four strategies that
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people use now these are archetypal
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strategies people might use a hybrid of
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of these as well but the four strategies
00:02:42
that we identified were one the first is
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called the open strategy so this is
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where the people who are willing to
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connect to anyone and everyone and they
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post anything and everything right so
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the good bad the ugly uh they'll reveal
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they'll they'll share it with everybody
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and this is this is sort of the the the
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strategy of authenticity openness trying
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to uh connect broadly and fully that's
00:03:11
the open strategy the second strategy
00:03:13
that we identified uh was one where
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people are much more careful about the
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audience that they choose to connect to
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and we call that the audience strategy
00:03:21
as a result so they they limit the
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audience who they are they're they are
00:03:27
conferring with and this by the way
00:03:29
helps with invisible audience problem
00:03:31
that I mentioned earlier um they they
00:03:36
also though will use a strategy of
00:03:37
authenticity so they've they've
00:03:39
carefully curated who Their audience is
00:03:42
but they will Express fully The Good Bad
00:03:45
and the Ugly to that carefully chosen
00:03:47
audience Okay the third strategy is what
00:03:50
we call the content strategy so here
00:03:53
people will choose to connect broadly to
00:03:57
multiple audiences but they will
00:03:59
carefully instead curate their content
00:04:01
they will choose uh pick and choose what
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kinds of uh information to post they
00:04:07
will typically choose things to post
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that is more self-enhancing that manages
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the impression that they're that they're
00:04:14
giving to other people uh and so we call
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that the content strategy the last
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strategy is what we call the custom
00:04:21
strategy these are folks who carefully
00:04:25
manage uh the the the the worlds where
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they separate the the audiences they
00:04:30
they'll connect to multiple audiences
00:04:32
but they'll carefully manage what gets
00:04:35
seen by which audience and so this is a
00:04:37
more difficult strategy to manage if you
00:04:40
you need to have some technologically uh
00:04:42
sophisticated skills and you need to
00:04:44
monitor it right and so uh this is where
00:04:47
for example on Facebook there are things
00:04:49
like lists that you can use where you
00:04:51
have different lists and you put and you
00:04:53
have one list see maybe everything and
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then another list see only a a sub
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selection of of what you're posting um
00:05:01
and and so this strategy will again
00:05:04
allow you to connect
00:05:06
broadly but and but it will uh and it
00:05:09
will allow you to verify and to you know
00:05:11
uh be authentic to one set of your
00:05:15
audiences but to be more careful about
00:05:17
what another audience
00:05:22
sees so each of these strategies has
00:05:25
important consequences for respect and
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liking so one of the in the workplace
00:05:30
how you're seen professionally by others
00:05:32
right and one of the things that we see
00:05:36
is that the open the open strategy might
00:05:40
be very very um it might make you
00:05:43
likable deeply likable to some people
00:05:46
but again with that invisible audience
00:05:48
there could be a whole bunch of people
00:05:50
who might be offended even by some of
00:05:53
the things so if you're posting
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political views some of your audience
00:05:56
might be rah rah right with you and
00:05:58
others are
00:06:00
kind of
00:06:01
silently um a little bit taken aback by
00:06:04
what you're what you're expressing right
00:06:06
and so there are there are some
00:06:08
different consequences in in terms of
00:06:10
these different strategies the audience
00:06:12
strategy allows you typically to you
00:06:14
know preserve the respect of others
00:06:16
around you but not not not necessarily
00:06:18
enhance it if you're not connecting with
00:06:19
them um the the custom strategy is the
00:06:24
one which we would argue has the
00:06:27
highest uh sort of ability to both
00:06:31
maximize respect and liking but it's
00:06:33
hard to do and if you make a mistake
00:06:36
then it can have a backlash because then
00:06:38
people realize oh wow you're actively
00:06:40
managing this and you're managing me Etc
00:06:43
um the content strategy also will have
00:06:46
the opportunity to enhance professional
00:06:49
respect and liking but again you could
00:06:51
go overboard on that if you're if you're
00:06:53
too you know enhancing people might be
00:06:56
put off by that right and so there might
00:06:58
be some there might be some backlash
00:07:00
there as well so all of these have
00:07:02
tradeoffs and they they need to be
00:07:05
chosen carefully we have a couple of
00:07:07
different thoughts about how to do
00:07:12
that so I think that there's a couple of
00:07:15
different steps that you want to think
00:07:17
about when you think about the strategy
00:07:20
that you're choosing and what the
00:07:22
consequences are for your online social
00:07:25
uh media presence and how that affects
00:07:27
your professional reputation so firstly
00:07:30
you need to choose your strategy think
00:07:32
about think think about what your
00:07:36
strategy is and what it should be right
00:07:38
maybe what you're doing isn't what you
00:07:40
should be doing right so be be
00:07:42
thoughtful about what your strategy is
00:07:45
secondly you want to think about whether
00:07:47
what your goals are on social media is
00:07:49
your goal to express yourself or to
00:07:52
impress others right so thinking about
00:07:55
whether you want to let the good Bad and
00:07:57
the Ugly all hang out and whether you
00:08:00
want everybody to see that or whether
00:08:02
you want to be more aware of your
00:08:05
professional reputation and what the
00:08:08
impact that has on others and how that
00:08:10
how that's seen by others right and so
00:08:12
the impression management piece may be
00:08:14
more important in terms of your goal the
00:08:16
third piece that we really think is
00:08:19
important in terms of how you manage
00:08:22
this behavior is to also assess your fit
00:08:25
with the professional context that
00:08:26
you're in so if you're a lawyer uh and
00:08:30
uh you you may not be able to be
00:08:31
connected with a judge on online social
00:08:34
media because that would there are
00:08:35
regulations around that however if
00:08:37
you're in a technology startup company
00:08:40
the norm and the culture may be that all
00:08:42
of you are connected and that's how you
00:08:44
interact and you do online chat and you
00:08:47
do Facebook and you do Instagram and and
00:08:49
all of that is part of how you relate to
00:08:51
your co-workers and so you need to be
00:08:53
really aware of both your personal
00:08:56
preferences as well as your on as well
00:09:00
as your environment and how that all
00:09:02
fits
00:09:05
together so I think that the Gaff is
00:09:08
actually really important because the a
00:09:09
lot I think people are very inertial in
00:09:11
terms of their strategies until they
00:09:14
either have something where there's
00:09:17
there's a big sort of Gaff that happens
00:09:20
where they get feedback negative
00:09:22
feedback about what happened or if they
00:09:24
are switching their professional context
00:09:26
right there's some there's usually some
00:09:28
impetus for people to change their
00:09:30
strategy it doesn't happen that that
00:09:33
frequently um so uh as an example one of
00:09:37
our interviewees had a situation where
00:09:40
she was she worked at a synagogue and uh
00:09:43
her Rabbi uh had asked her if he could
00:09:46
connect with her on Facebook and so she
00:09:48
said sure she was very active on
00:09:50
Facebook and one of the things that this
00:09:53
is a a reform uh synagogue where they um
00:09:57
you know it they they they they they
00:10:00
abide by a lot of the you know
00:10:02
regulations that the more strict uh Jews
00:10:06
would but it was not necessarily uh it's
00:10:09
not as strict right and so she she was
00:10:12
um posting a picture of her son who was
00:10:14
playing a soccer game on a Saturday and
00:10:18
um so her Rabbi saw that and said to her
00:10:24
you know as an employee of the synagogue
00:10:27
I don't think it's a good idea for you
00:10:29
to be posting a picture of your son even
00:10:31
though it's this wholesome soccer game
00:10:33
on a Saturday because it's giving the
00:10:36
you know the wrong impression because
00:10:37
it's Shabbat and that he shouldn't be
00:10:39
playing soccer on a Saturday and she was
00:10:43
really taken back by this and uh was a
00:10:47
little surprised and she ended up um
00:10:51
unfriending him as a result um but it
00:10:54
was really I mean it was a real wakeup
00:10:56
call to her that you know she needed to
00:10:58
be more aware of who was in her
00:11:01
audience and so you know these these
00:11:04
gaffs really do I think sometimes make
00:11:08
people much more aware of what strategy
00:11:12
they have so sometimes gffs can be good
00:11:14
because they they bring to light what
00:11:16
your what Your strategy is and if you do
00:11:19
need to correct it because you need to
00:11:20
be much more aware of how people are
00:11:22
responding to
00:11:26
you so our research shows that
00:11:29
what what's changed really is that
00:11:31
people need to be much more careful
00:11:33
about thinking about their communication
00:11:35
strategy when we communicate face to
00:11:37
face or over the phone or dietic or in a
00:11:39
small group typically what happens is we
00:11:43
automatically tailor our Communications
00:11:45
to our audiences we read their facial
00:11:47
expressions we look at their nonverbals
00:11:50
their body language we H we usually know
00:11:53
something about them and so we're we're
00:11:55
more careful about how we are
00:11:58
automatically careful about how we are
00:12:00
tailoring what we are saying and how
00:12:02
we're saying it in online social media
00:12:04
what's happened is that the whole point
00:12:07
is that we're connected to a broad
00:12:09
audience right and and that's that's
00:12:11
really the purpose of it but what
00:12:13
happens is it makes it much more
00:12:15
difficult to tailor our Communications
00:12:17
in an effective way and there are as as
00:12:21
we were talking about earlier there are
00:12:22
gaffs that people can make where they
00:12:25
are not tailoring their Communications
00:12:28
in a way that they would just naturally
00:12:30
do in these other in these other media
00:12:32
right and so one of the re there's some
00:12:35
there's some really spectacular examples
00:12:39
from the media recently um there was a a
00:12:43
a US Marine uh core member who was uh
00:12:47
running a tea party website uh Facebook
00:12:50
page and what he did was he posted
00:12:54
negative comments about Obama not really
00:12:57
realizing and forgetting about the fact
00:12:59
that uh there there was actually a
00:13:01
policy a pentagon policy about that
00:13:03
Limits The Free Speech rights of their
00:13:06
uh of of uh military members and so what
00:13:10
ended up happening was he was um
00:13:13
discharged not honorably because he had
00:13:15
really violated this policy when he said
00:13:18
something extremely negative about Obama
00:13:21
uh there's another example uh where that
00:13:24
involved Twitter where um Bob Parsons
00:13:27
who was the CEO of GoDaddy uh he's he
00:13:31
was an avid Game Hunter and he had gone
00:13:34
and had he posted a video of himself you
00:13:37
know I think shooting elephants in
00:13:40
Zimbabwe and uh you know Peta got and
00:13:44
and posted this on Twitter and um Peta
00:13:48
really uh got very very um exercised
00:13:52
about this and he ended up having to
00:13:53
step down a CEO and so there are a lot
00:13:56
of uh ways in which we see that this new
00:14:01
online social media has one opened up
00:14:04
doors right opened up amazing doors in
00:14:06
terms of allowing us to connect really
00:14:08
broadly and impactfully in ways that
00:14:11
personalize who we are and make people
00:14:13
feel connected to us but it also has the
00:14:17
the challenge of how do we do this in a
00:14:19
consistent and positive way such that we
00:14:22
don't have some of these really
00:14:24
spectacular disasters that can befall uh
00:14:27
and or even small disasters that can
00:14:29
befall us um along the
00:14:35
way we're going a lot of different
00:14:37
directions one of the directions that
00:14:39
I'm really excited about is a project
00:14:41
that's looking at online social media
00:14:43
and how that helps with teams one of the
00:14:46
things that is really challenging in
00:14:49
today's environment is we're oftentimes
00:14:51
working in global teams where
00:14:52
everybody's not collocated so we're
00:14:55
interested in seeing how online social
00:14:57
media can be really positive
00:14:59
for people who are working in
00:15:01
non-collocated teams and asking the
00:15:03
question do some of these online social
00:15:06
media strategies help more than others
00:15:08
uh another way that we're looking at
00:15:10
going forward in in this research is
00:15:12
looking at the question of hierarchy one
00:15:14
of the things that came up in a lot of
00:15:16
the interviews that we did with folks
00:15:18
initially around online social media
00:15:20
usage was the question of hierarchy and
00:15:23
how uh the the
00:15:26
online uh the online relationship
00:15:29
is um thinking about connecting with
00:15:31
your boss thinking con about connecting
00:15:34
with your subordinates so once you cross
00:15:35
those hierarchical lines how does that
00:15:38
really impact your work relationships a
00:15:41
lot of our uh interview subjects
00:15:43
actually likened their boss being
00:15:45
Facebook friends for example with their
00:15:47
boss to being Facebook friends with
00:15:49
their mothers and so you know that
00:15:51
hierarchical line I think is a really
00:15:54
important one and we're we're also doing
00:15:57
some research trying to understand and
00:16:00
when PE how people react to that and
00:16:02
what the consequences are for crossing
00:16:05
those lines in the workplace
