Social Network Strategies for Purposeful Impact

Social Network Strategies for Purposeful Impact #WLF11 OPEN silicon valley Jan 2011

View more presentations from Mei Fung.

Social Network Strategies

I'm preparing for my keynote talk at the Women's Leadership Forum and find myself caught up in the Tiger Mom controversy. Wow, that really struck a chord internationally.

All mothers (and fathers) do the very best they can to be the very best parent for their children - I am convinced that this is one of those "nature-given" qualities.

So the Tiger Mom issue resonates in many ways - what is "best approach" to education at a time of great change? How can we prepare our children for the future?

This blog is about Customer Connections - so as retailers and enterprises look for social network strategies that work, there are quite a few lessons in the global reach of Amy Chua's new book and the controversial Wall Street Journal Article that kicked off this global discussion.

See below for the videos - one, an interview with Amy Chua in the US and the other, an animated description created in Chinese.




http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Only-3-Days-to-WLF-2011---Register-Now-.html?soid=1101223523321&aid=didX2D6D33c

華裔學者教育觀惹爭議 (Amy Chua's 'Chinese Mother' claim provokes fierce backlash)

The Chinese animated version of the Tiger Mom controversy

Amy Chua/Tiger Mom, "Didn't Expect this Level of Intensity!" 1/26/2011

Click on the link above to see the video interview of Amy Chua on Good Morning America

Then below is a link to the Time Magazine Cover Q&A with Amy Chua


http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/11/chinese-vs-western-mothers-q-a-with-amy-chua/

Pause for Purpose

Hi everyone, here's a recent blog I posted at WholeLife Well Being - below is the video/musical accompaniment.

If you want the full experience, please play the video and open the link below in a separate window. It takes 17 seconds before the music starts, so that gives you time to open the other link to the blogpost on Pause for Purpose.

Pause for Purpose





I'm very interested in your feedback - either here, or at Whole Life Well Being.

Thank you for your consideration in reading. Happy New Year 2011

Mei Lin

PS This next video is from the International Trailer for The King's Speech - the video accompaniment to the Pause for Purpose blogpost.

Did you catch all of these? 10 business models that rocked 2010

Cool or not? I'm glad to welcome in 2011 with a first post that will rock your socks.

These 10 business models are different - one of them I even participated in- AirBnB and its been great. PatientsLikeMe - we've talked about in this blog earlier this year.

For those interested in customer connections - the maverick waves are coming. Maverick waves come into the coast of California - giant waves over 40 feet high. Some people shy away from them, others fly into to California to surf them. These business models are Maverick waves. Get ready for a wild ride.

10 business models that rocked 2010

View more presentations from Board of Innovation (BOI).

TEDxBayArea Women - Tara VanDerveer - Half Time Adjustments

Great halftime talk by Tara VanDerveer - terrific advice about adjusting your game based on what's happening. Bootstrapping, Feedback - how we react is as important as our planning.

At TedWomen, Leaders Tell Us *How* Women Can Run the World | Women's Voices For Change

So happy we put on this great event that highlighted so many voices! We started with our poem rif on Edna St Vincent Millay, adapted for the occasion

Upon Our gifted age in our dark hour
Falls from the sky a meteoric shower of Stories
Wisdom enough to nurture lives and grow joy is being spun today
Let us here create the loom of intention
To weave women's wisdom into the fabric of our daily lives

Deb Bowen - California Secretary of State and only the 6th woman to be elected to state-wide office, you rock!




At TedWomen, Leaders Tell Us *How* Women Can Run the World | Women's Voices For Change

Social Radio - example from Dell

If we want to build a community, how about thinking beyond a daily newsletter, how about radio?
Manish Mehta, VP Social Media & Communities at Dell used this term at the end of this videa (starting around the 3 minute mark). He talked about how employees within Dell needed to turn on their social radio to find out how well Dell as a company is perceived as doing the following "Listen" "Engage" "Act" and the Act as management consultant Dave Gardner says is not about being proactive, but being appropriately, relevantly and usefully Reactive to customers.

How are you tuning into your social radio? To anticipate what you need to do to serve your customers? How are your employees being mindful of the needs of the customers? And how can they go beyond being mindful and frustrated but being mindful and responsive?

TEDxBayArea Women - Dominique Crenn - Remembering: A Chef's Pledge to Ou...

The VERY BEST talk of the day by Iron Chef-Beater, Dominique Crenn

TEDxBayArea Women - John Hagel - The Big Shift:Challenge and Opportunity...

We had a GREAT day at the TEDxBayArea TEDWomen event at SAP in Palo Alto. John Hagel was one of 20 speakers but he truly stood out as a man who "gets it" and is predicting that the rise of the feminine archtetype is needed and important for climbing out of the hole we are in

The Mother of All Demos

December 9 2010 will be the 42nd anniversary of the Mother of all Demos, so its timely to highlight this great 5 minute video of an important moment in technology history. The link goes to Doug Engelbart's 2003 paper presented at IBM's Co Evolution Symposium - on the co-evolution of Human and Tool Systems.

The Perfect Metaphor for Poetry: A tinyBigPictureshow

There's a piece in the NY Times today about the digital key to unlocking the riches of the humanities....


then I thought about how in corporations we try to put complex things in a few words "give me the gist" or "top 3 takeaways"

and end up "simplexifying" it - making a complex thing even more complex by trying to simplify it.

Too often we take something that is immense and powerful and strip it of meaning in order to drive expectations down, so that failure is not even an option, because the expectatations have been set so low, that success is guaranteed. Now we are having to live in a world that has been created by this happening too many times. Jobs depleted of meaning in corporations that send souls into catharsis.

But catharsis is a waypoint to something, to send us up to an expanded plane of existence.

So I wanted to share with you the power of the humanities to simplify the complex in a completely different way.

Watch this 42 second film. An example of using language in precisely beautiful ways to hold a lot in a little space.

What you intend and what you are looking for shapes what you see.. David Sibbet

A maturity model for customer service

Gary Lemke, the genius behind CRM Advocate was writing a series of daily columns about whether or not we need a role of "Chief Apology Officer:.

I was struck by the idea of people creating problems so they could have more apologies to make, and therefore a long list of "accomplishments".

So Gary and I had an exchange on email, where I urged him to "go all the way" in identifying the maturity level of organizations in relationship to this topic of "apology".

To get him started, I suggested this ladder:



Level 0 - ain't no need for no stinkin' apology

Level 1 - maybe we outta start saying we're sorry

Level 2 - howsabout we think about fixin summa this stuff? we're tired of hearing complaints day in day out

Level 3 - we don'have to fix it if we don't let the bad stuff happen - what we gotta do to avoid these potholes we keep falling into

Level 4 - now its pretty boring 'cause things kinda work, maybe we could make it more fun for us and our customers, after all we deal with each other every day?

Level 5 - Business is Delovely! Delightful, delectable, delirious,
delicious, it's DELOVELY. Credit to Cole Porter.

Open call for Haikus for the 21st century soul-searcher

I was glad to speak at the Santa Cruz Women's Leadership day last month and had the pleasure of meeting Camille Smith. I ended with my poem, that starts with the first stanza quoting Edna St Vincent Millay and ends with

..." let us now conceive the loom of intention to weave wisdom into the fabric of our souls"

In response, Camille sent me her haiku on habits...finely observed and described Camille!

Thank you for writing it and sharing it with us.

Habits
Unconscious comfort
Worked fine yesterday (I think)
Tourniquets to growth.

Camille Smith, Work In Progress Coaching™
www.wipcoaching.com, camille@wipcoaching.com

One Tribe y'all - Our language is unity

The Internet brings us together - Shakespeare said it well:

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

let's ride this opportunity on to the voyage of our lives!

The Dilbert Paradox – "How do you develop talent in the face of the stultifying effect of the work environment?"

The Power of Pull - John Hagel talking at TEDxBayArea

Tip of the hat to Rich Reader:

The sixth proposition of the “Power of Pull” asserts that workers become stressed out and ineffective when their passions are totally disconnected from their jobs. John Hagel asks executives to think about the increasing pressures that accompany the long term shift. How do passionate workers cope with the suppression of their questing dispositions amid unexpected challenges? How do the impassionate workers rationally avoid the challenges, ignore them, paper them over, hide from them, and wish that they would just go away. Passionate workers see challenges through a different lens, as matters of intense interest for which they will stretch beyond their comfort zones, and seek out the team members who will help them to overcome said challenges. Rather than waiting for these challenges to come to them, the passionate seek out the challenges.

How to design our work environments so that people develop on the job day to day?


YES - You have to "rethink day to day operations, rethink IT" and more - and Hagel says "its off the charts for most CEO's"

That sounds like we have a fabulous opportunity to capture the most passionate, talented people in the world !

Congratulations to Tatyana Kanzaveli, my co-organizer of TEDxBayArea for pulling together and amazing event - we have John Hagel talking about the shift from knowledge stocks to knowledge flows.

Rich Reader created a capsule overview of the whole event at the link above - click on the title, and decide whether to read or view the 4 highlight video snippets.

What do YOU think?

PS Here's a preliminary look at our TEDxBayArea event December 8 2010 - in conjunction with TEDWomen - Click here to apply for a scholarship

Customer Experience in the Government sector: A Marathon not a Sprint

CEM in the Government sector...
Be prepared for a marathon, it is not a sprint

Ms. Mei Lin Fung
Chairman, www.isoe.com
G-CEM Global Advisor

Click here to read this article in Chinese


This article is exclusively written for G-CEM.

What is your experience of government? Is this familiar when you travel? "you wait in line at least twenty minutes, pushing and shoving... staff... unhappy... people miss their flights". If you travel by air, then standing in the security queue at the airport has to count as one of the most common customer experiences in the government sector. And one of the most dreadful, as Erik Pothuma recounts at www.thesocialcustomer.com

Why is it so bad? And there are few signs of progress... does no one care?

As a native Singaporean I have been studying eGov or electronic Government in Singapore since 2002. Then, as I live in the Silicon Valley, USA, I have been able to take an inside look at the Federal Government particularly in the Health sector. And in both Singapore and the USA I have met many smart and caring people in the Civil Service of both countries. I know thousands are working very hard to make things better, to take advantage of the Internet and new technologies: People who are passionate, committed and very dedicated to public service. What I have found is that it is difficult to change the practices of decades especially when, as in most governments, huge networks of businesses are intertwined with government in the delivery of government services. In the practice of CEM in Government, Inertia and Vested interests are the biggest enemy and we must properly prepare ourselves for how difficult the task will be.

The other day, I was working in my garden, where I planted some black bamboo about 15 years ago. If you are familiar with bamboo, you know that their roots are VERY persistent, very strong, and difficult to remove. So when I wanted to tidy up the garden and get rid of the roots that had grown in the wrong place, it took a very long time, not just hours, it took days. Roots had grown over each other in layers - each had to be removed one by one. It took a great deal of time, patience and energy. This reminded me a lot about the work I have seen underway in Singapore and the US as people went about transforming government to better serve citizens. The old ways were very entrenched, just like those bamboo roots. It was not possible to make one change, many things had to be changed all at the same time in order for new technologies to make a positive difference for the customer.

Singapore is currently on its 3rd decade of eGovernment initiatives, starting the next 5 year plan 2011 to 2015 for being a world class citizen centric government. Ranked top in the world in information-communications development and usage by the Waseda University World eGov ranking, and number one by IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook - a significant shift has been made, to go away from the earlier "Government Knows Best" approach to a new "Gov-With-You" in which the government is harnessing social network technologies to improve services and lower costs. A key strategy is to use the video channels like www.YouTube.com, social networks like www.Facebook.com and messaging channels like www.Twitter.com to engage with the citizens to shape government services that deliver value to the citizens. What is clear is the new hardwon maturity emerging in the Singapore eGov leadership, with sophisticated policy makers realizing that CEM can be designed best "in-conjunction" with the citizen/customer.

A thorough review of the practical aspects of Singapore eGov strengths and weaknesses has been written by Australian researchers at Monash University, Houng Ha and Ken Coghill. "the Singaporean government has changed the ways it looks, thinks and acts"..."The government has had to challenge itself and change the ways it thinks and operates in order to continually develop, sustain and improve the operational processes of the public services". From 2002 to 2005, the Singapore government invested approximately US $1Billion or $250 per head of population. If China had spent the equivalent amount per person, this would be $350 billion. If the US had spent this amount per person, they would have spent $75 billion. Thus the lessons from Singapore are useful pointers to other governments in improving customer experience, because of the amount invested already and the depth of commitment that shows to the goal of government serving the people with technology.



This framework has lead to the successful growth of eGovernment by motivating and providing incentives for all stakeholders to use and improve online Services. A key point to note that eGovernment success in Singapore has been achieved primarily by human capital development and capacity building.

Let's apply this framework to some recent examples. The European Union recognized the 2009 winners of the eGovernment Awards. Out of the 5 winners, Genvej in Denmark topped the category of eGovernment empowering citizens, and a MEPA, the Public Administration eMarketplace in Italy won the category of egovernment empowering business. We'll briefly describe each.

Genvej - Denmark

A small town near the Danish capital of Copenhagen developed an online self-service application to provide citizens access to information and all public sector services. These services include:
- Identification: Find the name, social security number, age, address
- Real estate services: Utilities, municipality plans, and registration tests.
- Information, photos: Their children's school and day care institution.
- Exchange information: E.g. with day care institutions e.g. about sickness, who's picking up the child, permissions to drive in bus or car
- Enrolment: for children to a school, library services
- Order a Danish Health Security card and change their house doctor



Genvej points out key implementation guidelines for CEM success in Government:

1. DEDICATION: Genvey had three fulltime employees developing Genvej, providing user/citizen support and teaching the rest of the organization all about the digital universe.
2. STRUCTURE: Digital projects need structured work frames, Genvej used MSP/Prince2 that provided overview, control and generated energy and momentum through setting intermediate milestones and achieving progress.
3. TIME: Often it is necessary to collaborate with several partners/vendors using different terminology and jargon, misunderstanding is normal when there is diversity in the IT-systems, data and workflows.
4. PROMOTION: Promotion, talking, advertising, an over-all PR strategy including citizens and staff is necessary.

MEPA - Italy

MEPA is the Italian Public Administration eMarketplace - a virtual market in which any government agency may buy online the goods and services, offered by suppliers digitally qualified according to specific selection criteria.



MEPA connects thousands of public bodies and suppliers through 2 main purchasing tools: Direct Order (DO), and Request for Quotation (RfQ). The interactivity stimulates strong competition, gathering offers from various suppliers under defined qualification requirements, terms and conditions. Monitoring is undertaken to assure transactions meet the MEPA rules.

Looking through our Capability framework, we can summarize MEPA:



MEPA allowed many to discover that the relationship between trust and good governance is circular. Good governance leads to higher trust which in turn leads to better governance.



Our last case study is in the USA which is on the bleeding edge of CEM in Government, especially in education and health where the US Federal government efforts in these two sectors are the main achievements of President Obama. The results so far have been greatly disappointing to the supporters of President Obama. I am going to make the case that it is unrealistic to expect change so fast. This is not a sprint, it is a marathon. Transformation in these sectors involves many fundamental and structural changes. It is wise to be realistic about how difficult it is to change things that have been in place for dozens of years.

To implement Customer Experience Management in health requires electronic health records. Despite law's mandating that health records be standardized and made electronic, there is still a long way to go. One might think that within the government itself it might be possible, since the government is paying for healthcare costs for government employees. Let's apply the Capability Framework and learn.



Customer Experience management in Government requires commitment, dedication and energy of a whole different order of magnitude than in the "for profit" world. I have been privileged to work with and learn from Dr. Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the Computer Mouse and the Father of Collaborative Computing. Key insights of his have been distilled in "Improving our Ability to Improve" and in working on these issues in the US Federal Health arena, it has proved helpful to look in terms of future capabilities looking at the interaction of tools/technologies and the human systems which enable those capabilities. Engelbart's key insight is that future technologies cannot be designed and developed in isolation from the human systems. Human capital development and organizational development is required.



As we learned from the Genvej Denmark case study - it is critical to have a shared vision of the future - in all its complexities, nuances and dimensions. That vision encompassing the tool system, the human system and the new capabilities resulting from their interaction cannot be from the point of view of one powerful stakeholder, but must include all stakeholders. In order for that shared vision to come about , it is necessary that there are values and meanings that are important to the stakeholders - important enough that they commit themselves to realistically devise the roadmap required to achieve the vision. MEPA in Italy demonstrated the change in the human system that had to take place in order to enable MEPA to function - a new legal framework had to be put in place. Finally, the Singapore case study reminds us that heavy investment in human capital is required. Commitment and understanding that effective training and skill development is required to re-orient an entire population to live in a different world where new capabilities are constantly being developed.

When you think it is a sprint and it turns out to be a marathon, then you might give up. That's one reason why CEM in government is the most challenging area to drive Customer Experience. It is also the area that can be the most rewarding.

For those who are up to the challenge - the long hard work of driving CEM in Government is worthwhile when you know that millions of lives will be changed for the better through your efforts, that your passion to improve standard of living and benefit humankind is shared by many, who are waiting to hear your call to action. I urge you to rise to the extreme challenge of this most worthwhile endeavor, to join with others to leave the world a better place than you found it.


About the Author

Mei Lin Fung works with Oklahoma State University's Spears Business School to offer certificate and performance management programs in business-customer relations. She recently assisted communications firm Avaya in developing an innovative public and private customer relations partnership, honored with the American Society of Competitiveness' Phillip B. Crosby Golden Medallion. Fung was an early pioneer in CRM, having worked with both Tom Siebel, founder of Siebel Systems, and Marc Benioff, founder of salesforce.com in 1988 at Oracle at the very beginning of the CRM industry. Blog: Professionals Earn Customer Trust

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.”

In the middle of a recession in the US, it is all too easy to hark back to those "good old days" when jobs were more plentiful and going out for dinner was the highlight of the week.

Sometimes, it takes a JOLT to make us raise our eyes to aspire higher.

If he had never become a double amputee, Liu would never have learned to "keyboard" with his toes. At the age of 19, when he decided to resume his dream of becoming a musician, he has astounded the world.





If we did not have the financial crisis and the mortgage crisis and the job crisis, those of us who can imagine the grace of superb service, and engaging in rewarding relationships everyday might have felt our dreams were fantasies.

If we had not experienced the disruption of information technology in re-shaping our work and lives, we might not imagine it within our power to use technology to lift the quality of our well-being. As Douglas Engelbart described in the conclusion of his seminal paper "As we may work" : Technology is like fire, it can burn us up, or it can be harnessed for great good.

At dinner tonight at Brabo's in Alexandria, VA talking about the opportunity we have to transform our health institutions into instruments of well-being, Edna St Vincent Millay supplied the first stanza, the second is inspired by the work I am doing these days

Upon this gifted age in its dark hour
Falls from the sky, a meteoric shower of facts
They lie unquestioned, uncombined
Wisdom to leech us of all our ill, is daily spun
But there is no loom to weave it into fabric

Upon our gifted age in its new awakening
Falls from the sky a meteoric shower of stories
Of acts of beauty;
Compassion that lies unremarked and unrecognized
Wisdom to nurture life, heal hurts, grow joy, is daily spun
Let us commit our loom of civilized intention
to weave wisdom into the fabric of our souls


When people are wondering what next big wave will drive our economy, NOW is the time to resume our dream of a Service Economy that puts people at the center - service that is uplifting for employees and customers alike!

Service by the people, with the people, for the people